Chapter 36
My plan was simple. In as much as taking over about ten MCs and having them see things your way can possibly be. It started well.
I called in the remaining members of about ten MCs at war with the Devils, promising them one last battle that would end it all. They were eager to come and weren’t far, licking their wounds up and down Cali and in Nevada.
Then I let the Devils take the empty town of Roaring Brook, laughing with my new friends—close to four hundred men, all told.
We set up an ambush for the Devils in a desert valley. Everything shone copper in the dying sun, the land and sky both, as the battle began.
Our intel was off. Or we’d been betrayed. Probably both.
Many more than half the Devils showed up and they weren’t alone. Forsaken Outlaws MC and another club I’d never heard of—Rogue Angels MC—joined them. Together they tore through us.
I got a bullet to the arm that just narrowly missed my throat. Scorpio got one in the stomach. Mostly because he was so upset at having to fight Karma. I saw them arguing in the field. And I’m as sure as I can be that the bullet he took was meant for her. But he won’t talk to me about it.
I don’t know what’s with him and that hard bitch. She never gave him the time of day anyway. I looked for her in the dusty darkness of the battlefield, wanted to put a bullet through her head just so Scorpio would finally be free of her. No such luck.
We lost twenty men. I don’t think the Devils lost any.
Eden wasn’t wrong. They’ll march straight into a hail of bullets to get her back. And they’ll usually remain unscathed. I swear the actual devil is on their side.
After the desert fiasco everyone scattered. I pulled us back to a bunker in a forest, which I use to stash all the weapons we’ve stolen from the Devils since this war started.
I’ve gotten very rich and well-equipped on the information from their three unknowing traitor brothers Archer, Bane, and Fossil. All while the other MC’s waging war on the Devils kept getting themselves killed with not much revenge to show for it. All because they refused to listen to me.
But I have what’s left of their leadership here now.
I’d hoped to give them the speech about how the Devils can be defeated if only they’ll all follow me, standing knee deep in Devils” blood on that copper field in the desert, but that didn’t happen.
I still have Eden and all this weaponry. The war is far from over. It hasn’t even truly begun yet.
I’ll give them the weapons, but not Eden.
I hate it that this thought still keeps intruding. Or that I can’t fucking let my mind wander without it wandering right to how good she felt in my lap, opening for me, coming hard enough to almost pass out. Hurting her is impossible. But keeping her is impossible too.
So I don’t let my mind wander.
The bunker isn’t big enough to sleep more than a hundred, but it’s in a nice and remote place where the grass is soft, birds sing in the trees, and no one can see smoke from the fires we build at night. It’s as good a place as any to nurse a bullet wound, and Scorpio and I powered through like we’d done so many times before. Hot steel, heated in the fires, closed our wounds and after that it was all about managing the pain.
Scorpio did it with the help of his bottle. I did it out of sheer hate for the Devils. The hate that I now can’t feel without seeing Eden’s face—smiling, laughing, coming for me like it’s the only thing she needs from this life. But at least I still got plenty of hate too.
The sun is setting, fires are going up, and the smell of baked beans and sausages roasting is filling the air like we’re on some weird camping trip. The smell of defeat is heavy in the air too.
The burning pain in my arm that wouldn’t go away for three days is now a throbbing ache, and my mind is finally clear again.
I’ve been rehearsing the speech I’m about to give for the better part of the last twenty-four hours. And it’s time to give it.
I climb to the flat roof of the underground bunker, which stands a few feet from the ground and fire my nine mil in the air three times to get everyone’s attention. More than half of the hundred or so guys gathered here weren’t talking before, and they don’t look like they’re gonna listen now. Defeated. I won’t fucking have that! Not when I’m so close to getting the one thing I always wanted.
“Listen to me,” I yell. “This is just a small setback. We have the weapons and we have the means to give the Devils the death they have earned so many times over. Bloody and painful.”
I pause to gauge their reaction. Most of them are looking at me, some even have fire in their eyes. Only Scorpio is giving me this look like he thinks I’m full of shit. But he’s been looking like that at everyone and everything since the battle. Another thing that probably has something to do with that bitch Karma.
“It’s time for our final stand,” I continued. “Time for the battle that will end all battles. And end the Devils. In a town of Justice.”
My men already know this part of the plan and stay silent. But conversations are starting to erupt among the others.
“What makes you think this battle will work?” Bear, one of the last remaining members of Road Warriors MC asks. “None of them have so far.”
“They would’ve,” I say. “If you’d listened to me from the start.”
“You were untried,” Badger whines. “We couldn’t just trust you.”
He managed to escape death by the skin of his teeth in his recent fight against the Devils, though not without two bullet holes. He might still die. I hope not. He’s the last of the original leadership of the war and I need him backing me. When the war started his hair was jet black, now it’s white. He looks tired and not just from the most recent wounds he suffered. He’s ready to pass on the baton. And if he backs me, I’m the new leadership. That’s the best-case scenario, anyway.
“I had a plan then, but I have a better one now,” I say. “I will need everyone you have for it to work. And together, we can wipe the Devils off the face of this world, once and for all.”
I get some interested sorts of murmurs in response to that. But for the most part they’re all looking at me like I’ve lost my mind. Or worse, like I’m some idiot child promising things he can’t possibly deliver.
“The town of Justice—my town—is surrounded by hills and valleys with only one good road in,” I say. “With all of us manning those hills and with the weapons in this bunker I’m standing on, we can take the Devils when they come riding in. Easy.”
Yet more interested sounds whoosh over the crowd. Some scoffs too.
“And what makes you think the Devils will just ride into this trap?”
I don’t answer right away, waiting until everyone is quiet and waiting for my answer. Even Scorpio is giving me his undivided attention now, without any stupid smirk on his face.
“Because I stole something very precious from them,” I say.
“What? The weapons?” a guy whose name I don’t know asks. “They have a shit ton more where that came from.”
“No, not weapons,” I say, grinning. “I stole one of Ice’s precious daughters. And you know how protective they are of their women.”
“They always ride to get them back,” Badger says. “No matter the odds.”
It’s been a running joke for decades among the other MCs that the Devils’ only weakness is their women.
“They also always get their women back,” Badger says, rightly pointing out that weakness might not be the best way to describe the lengths the Devils go to get their women back. “And kill whoever took them.”
“Yeah, that’s always been true,” I say. “Until now. They’ll ride to get Eden back. But they won’t return home.”
I won’t let them have her. I won’t let anyone have her. I’ve already more or less come to terms with that. But she will have to watch her family die. Just like I had to watch mine die. Can’t be avoided. At least then we’ll be on equal ground. But it’ll be impossible for her to love me after that. And she won’t be the same, with her heart and her soul all crushed like that. Therefore, it’s impossible for me to keep her. But that’s the way it has to be.
The dead silence following my words eventually leads to murmurs rising. It sounds like maybe I got them on my side.
“So what’s your plan?” Badger asks. “Exactly.”
I wait until I have everyone’s attention again.
“It’s simple,” I say. “We gather up the forces we have left and man the hills surrounding Justice armed to the teeth. I’m talking bazookas, sniper rifles, grenades, rocket launchers, the works. For once we’ll be as heavily armed as the Devils always are. And we’ll have the upper ground.”
Murmurs of agreement are getting louder. That’s a good sign.
“And once all that is in place…” I go on, pausing for effect. “…we tell them where they can find Eden.”
Badger and a lot of the others are nodding. Smoke is rising from the fires that were lit to cook dinner and chase away the night’s cold and darkness, because no one’s tending to them. That’s how engrossed they are in hearing my plan. I have them.
Badger claps his hands then winces because the movement must’ve aggravated one of his wounds. “That’s it. This will work. I’ll ride with you.”
Many others make the same promise. Mostly men who have lost their MC presidents and vice-presidents and are now rudderless. I need the others too. The ones who still have their leadership intact.
“We do this and we’re gonna need some guarantees,” Bear says. “Let’s talk division of spoils.”
Badger stands up, groaning load enough for everyone to focus on him. He’s grinning as he walks over to me. I reach out my hand to help him climb to the top of the bunker to stand beside me.
“I’m sure there’ll be enough spoils to go around once the Devils are finished,” he says to the crowd once he’s standing next to me. “I’m with Joker. I’m sure he’ll succeed where we failed so far.”
I didn’t even know how much I wanted to hear him say that until just now.
He turns to me. “You have what’s left of my guys.”
We shake on it.
After that the others pledge their guys to me too, some more heartily and readily than others. They’ll all come around once we have victory.
Some are even chanting my name now. I’m sure Scorpio started that, but it’s good to hear, “Joker! Joker! Joker!” echoing over the treetops.
It makes all the failures worth it. And in a lot of ways, also makes me feel like I’ve already won. Kinda like I can have my pie and eat it too.
We spent the rest of the night planning our next moves and I think by dawn, I truly had them all ready to follow my lead. Ten days from now, we make our final stand. In Justice. The town that was named for that very day.
We can’t all converge on it at the same time though. No matter how secretive we tried to be, it would alert the Devils that something was brewing for sure. Hence the need for a delay. It took most of the night to make the others understand that. Most of them wanted the battle to happen yesterday.
Some of them left at first light to regroup with their scattered brothers and pass on the word of our plans. Others left shortly after that. By noon, only my MC brothers were still with me in the forest.
Only Scorpio and I are riding back to Justice. I’m leaving Manic and Razor here to organize the transport of these weapons there and sending the rest to three more bunkers just like this one to get the weapons from those. They’re also gonna spread some false rumors about where Eden is being held.
The more tired and deflated by failure the Devils are when they come to Justice, the better.
“Best thing would be to send them up and down the coast for the next ten days,” I tell Scorpio as we’re getting ready to ride.
He gives me one of those weird accusatory looks he’s been giving me for the past couple of days. “Ten days should be enough time to get done breaking Eden, right?”
His gaze is boring holes in my head like he’s trying to read my mind.
“Yeah,” I say non-committally.
“But you won’t, will you?” he says.
I shrug. There’s not a lot of secrets between us, never have been. He’s probably the only one who can see clearly through all my lies and my bullshit. Sometimes even when I can’t see it myself.
“How are you gonna stop all these other angry guys from doing it though?” he asks, once again hitting the nail right on the head.
I mount my bike and put on my helmet. “Let’s ride. It’s a long way back to Justice.”
“Yeah,” he says. “Even longer than it was a couple of days ago, it seems.”
He probably means that we’re now farther away from getting justice and revenge than we were before all this started, but I’m not gonna ask if I’m right. He can keep this bullshit philosophy to himself. I’m having a hard enough time sorting my own thoughts these days.
The ride takes the whole day and most of the evening. My arm is burning again by the time we pull up in front of the Saloon in Justice. No one challenged us on the way in, which I assumed was because they recognized us. But now there’s only the hoes here and none of my guys. Even though all their bikes are here.
Cherry comes out of the Saloon as we dismount, three other women right behind her. For once she’s not wearing her sky-high heels and her makeup isn’t as perfect as it usually is.
“What’s going on?” I ask her.
It’d be just my luck to have everything go wrong just after I’ve successfully obtained everything I’ve spent over a decade wanting.
“She ran,” Cherry says. “They’ve all been looking for her for hours.”
“Fuck!” My yell echoes over the hills and comes back multiplied.
As well it should.
If Eden gets away, all my plans are ruined. Dead in the water before they even got started.
If she gets away, I’ll never get her back.
I don’t know which of those two things is worse.
“Which way did she run?” I ask.
“Out back of the house, they think,” Cherry says. “She didn’t come through town or down the main road.”
Forget running back to the Devils. She’ll never get that far. These hills are riddled with rattlesnakes, big cats and who knows what else.
And if the wrong Lost Sons members find her tonight, there might not be much of her left... I don’t want to think about any of those things, but it’s all playing on a terribly loud loop in my head.
I get back on my bike and race up to the house, Scorpio right behind me. Once we reach the house, I only stop long enough to check that my gun is loaded and I have my knife. For once, Scorpio doesn’t have any schooling words for me. He just checks his weapons too and follows me into the darkness beyond the house.
For the first time since I can remember, the darkness frightens me. Used to be I loved it, because you can do anything you want in the dark.
But now it might’ve taken the thing I want the most.