Rio’s Release (Saint’s Outlaws MC: Las Cruces NM Chapter #1)

CHAPTER ONE

Everything Goes Sideways

Rio—

“Jesus Christ, it’s fucking hot out here.”

I look over at Blue. “Shut up about the heat, already.”

“It’s fucking 1:00 am. Why is it still so goddamn hot?” he mutters.

“Because we’re four miles from the border. New Mexico isn’t Boston, dumbass,” Mauler snaps, then grinds his smoke under his boot.

I stare across the industrial road to the warehouse next to the fifty’s diner. The lot is deserted.

We’re about half a block down on the right, parked up a little drive in a small patch of gravel behind some bushes. I figured it’d be easy access in and out, with no security cameras around.

“You sure this is the place?” Zig asks in a low voice, leaning close and glancing around.

“Next to the diner. That’s what they said,” I reply, nodding across the street to the place they wanted to meet. I changed the plan when we scoped this place out yesterday. I don’t know these guys, and I don’t trust them. I’m not about to make us sitting ducks in some set up.

Zig shifts on his feet.

I’m just as uncomfortable with this whole setup as he is. “Take a breath, Zig.”

“They’re late,” he reminds me—a fact I don’t need to be reminded.

“I don’t like this whole setup either, bro,” I confide.

Zig’s my right-hand man on this deal. I trust him with my life, and I know he feels the same. We grew up together, joined the club together, and came up through the ranks together. As the club’s enforcer, I’m the highest ranked patch on this run, twenty-four hundred miles from our mother chapter. Why the hell I volunteered to come out here and make this new drug connection, I’ll never know. But our president trusted me enough with setting up this new pipeline, that I had to accept the job when he asked. I’ve never let Storm down, and I’m not about to start.

The sound of a pickup truck carries to us, and two headlights come into view. We’re just about a mile off the main highway, but there’s nothing out here except warehouses and businesses that all closed at five. Even the diner closed three hours ago. There’s no reason for anyone to come out this way, unless it’s our connection.

I toss my cigarette. “That’s gotta be them. Look alive, boys.”

Everyone straightens, and I know they’re all as on-edge as I am. Making a drug deal this close to the border is insane, but I couldn’t get the dealer to come any farther than Santa Teresa. Thank God we didn’t have to meet in El Paso. I know better than to take that chance.

“I hate this shit,” Zip whispers. “We’ve never dealt with this guy before. “

“A drug deal is a high-risk transaction, brother.” I watch the truck approaching, practically crawling. “When you were a kid, did you ever try to trade with someone you didn’t quite trust?”

“Yep.”

“That’s basically a drug deal except you add in lots of guns, almost a quarter million dollars, and no one to bail us out if they try to cheat. Even the slightest misunderstanding can lead to bloodshed.”

“Well, it ain’t gonna be yours or mine,” Zig whispers, his hand going to the small of his back where he keeps a 9mm tucked and ready.

The truck slows, spotting us. We’re not where we’re supposed to be, and I’m sure that throws them.

They stop in the road and kill their headlights. The passenger door opens, and a man climbs out. He’s younger than I expected. I guess guys grow up quick on the other side of the border, especially in this line of work.

“You with the Saints?” he asks in a heavy accent, his eyes darting around.

I nod and grab a backpack from the seat of my bike and drop it on the ground, waiting for him to show me the product.

He eyes the money, and I know we’ll have to check each other’s bags to make sure neither of us is cheating the other. He reaches into the bed of the truck and grabs two suitcases.

Before he reaches us, a semi-truck comes up the road. It’s just the tractor portion with no trailer behind it. It looks like a big Peterbilt, and it’s picking up speed as it approaches, its dual chrome exhaust pipes bellowing smoke.

“What the fuck is this?” Zig hisses, and I’m wondering the same.

My attention is divided between it, the guy with the suitcases, and the pickup driver, wondering if this is some diversion. The men look nervous, glancing down the road, and the man with the suitcases stops in his tracks about ten feet from me. We’re in a gravel area just a few yards from the curb.

I hear the sound of the men at my back all drawing their weapons, but before we know what’s about to happen, the semi veers, surging up on the curb and heading straight for us. Everyone scrambles, and he plows through our parked bikes like they’re tinker toys.

I dive and roll and pray my brothers all make it out of the way.

Zig gets on a knee and fires at the truck, as do several others.

There’s another small pickup with no headlights on, driving behind the semi. None of us spotted it, and I curse, knowing this isn’t some drunk trucker.

A guy jumps out of the bed and snatches the bag, and another guy grabs the suitcases, and they both vault into the bed, and the little pickup peels out. A man stands resting an AR15 over the roof of the cab and pins us all down with rapid fire.

I dive to the ground and cover my head as the dirt around me explodes.

They make a U-turn and jump the curb onto the street as my men get to their feet and scramble to return fire. The semi makes the same turn, peeling out toward the highway.

It's then I notice the man who’d had the suitcases is face down in the dirt, half his head blown away. The driver is leaned against the steering wheel, the horn blaring, the back window and windshield shot out, their truck riddled with bullets.

Looking toward the departing taillights, I realize they took out exactly who they intended, and purposefully left us alive.

“Who the fuck was that?” Zig roars.

“My guess is the Morales Cartel. Maybe they found out we were doing a deal with the Ramirez crew on their turf.” I glance around. “Check if anyone’s hit.”

Zig moves off to do my bidding while Mauler moves to the pickup and leans the driver back so the fucking horn shuts off.

I survey the devastation the semi did to our bikes. Not a single one is salvageable. “Goddamn it. Those motherfuckers. Somebody’s going to pay for this, by God.”

Zig returns to my side. “The men are all good.”

“Goddamn it. We can’t leave our bikes here. They’ll connect us to this shit for sure if we do,” I growl glancing around for a solution.

“All these bikes, we’ll need a damn flatbed,” Zig mutters.

I spot a landscape company on the other side of the diner. “Send one of the guys over there and see if you can find a trailer we can pile the bikes on. We’ll have to ditch them in the desert somewhere.”

He lifts his chin to Mauler, who takes off at a jog to check and comes back in two minutes, breathing hard. “Yeah. They’ve got one behind the building that should work.”

The rest of the men gather around me, and I lift my chin to the pickup. “See if that pickup is drivable. If it is, drag the driver out and go get that damn trailer. We’ll have to pile the bikes up on it and ride in the back of that fucking truck bed. Move! We don’t have much time to get the hell out of here.”

Zig nods, and they all race off except Bagger.

“How the fuck did that happen?” he bites out.

“I don’t have a clue, Bagger, but we’re out two-hundred thousand dollars of club money. I’m not going back to Boston and tell Storm we lost it all.”

“We goin’ after ‘em?” he asks, jerking his chin toward the highway.

“Fuck, they’re long gone, and we’ve got no bikes. We can kiss that money goodbye.”

“So, what are we gonna do?”

My next statement has him looking at me like I’ve lost my mind. “We’re going to find a way to get two-hundred thousand dollars in cash.”