Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
Eazy
In my rearview mirror, I see the sun dipping below the horizon, casting a fiery orange glow across the Montana sky as I go through downtown Ember Falls on my way to the bike shop. Slow drives down Main Street, especially at this time of year, with all the festive decorations, usually soothe me. But today, a threat hanging over our small town like a dark storm cloud darkens my mood.
It has been several days since we dealt with the motherfucker who arrived looking for my woman. I recall our encounter and his words when he said my woman is collateral for her stepdad’s debt. The rage that surged through me then still festers, eating at my insides today. The thought of Noelle’s stepfather using her as a bargaining chip churns my stomach. I’ve been on edge for days because we have more questions than answers.
I drum my fingers against the steering wheel and glance at the wrapped Christmas gifts beside me. Despite dealing with all this and maintaining safety for my woman, her brother, and the club, I’m doing my best to keep it from suffocating them. I take a deep breath, letting it out slowly, trying to calm my unsettled nerves, which remain on edge.
I finally arrive at the shop to see if the dealership delivered the new car I ordered for Noelle. Parking by the bay door, I walk inside.
“Hey, Eazy.” Lydia looks up from her phone and smiles.
Lydia has been working for the shop since the beginning of summer. She’s a good kid. Since her sweet mom died more than two years ago from cancer, she’s been taking on jobs wherever she can to help her old man make ends meet. All that pressure, and the kid is taking online college courses, too. I admire her determination and hard work. “How’s it goin’, sweetheart? Rooster around?”
“Yeah. He’s out there working on Mr. Blackburn’s farm truck.”
“How’s your old man?” I ask.
Lydia smiles. “Right now, he’s like a cat on hot bricks because he finally mustered up the courage to ask Mrs. Bailey out on a date.” She sighs. “It’s good to see him looking forward to something again, even if he’s nervous.” Lydia frowns. “I miss Momma, but Daddy has so much love inside him that it’s unfair not to have someone he can share it with again.”
Her words make me think about Ma and how much she loved my old man and still does. Then my thoughts drift back to Noelle, and my mind plays out a scenario in which I lose her, just like Ma lost my dad. The thought makes my throat tighten like I just swallowed a brick. I glance at the clock on the wall, and it’s an hour until closing. “Go ahead and clock out early, kid,” I say, and her eyes light up.
“You sure?” Lydia asks as I head to the garage.
“Want me to change my mind?” I continue walking, not looking back.
“You’re the best.” I hear the joy in her voice and almost crack a smile, but the weight of other business keeps it at bay.
“Rooster!” I shout, hoping to cut through the sound of an impact tool. He looks up from the hood of an old Chevy, wiping his hands on a rag.
“How’s it going, Prez?”
“Thought I’d swing by and see about the car.”
Rooster finishes wiping his hand and strolls across the room to the other bay area. He pulls the cover off the parked vehicle, revealing the new, sleek black Range Rover Sport SUV I bought for Noelle. As much as she wants to hold onto that beater of hers, it’s on its last legs, and fixing everything wrong with it isn’t worth the costs.
While inspecting the car, my phone rings, so I swipe the screen. “Talk to me,” I answer in my usual manner.
“Prez,” Brewer’s urgent voice makes my blood cold, and I immediately know something is wrong.
“Where’s Noelle?” I voice my only thought.
Brewer struggles to catch his breath. “They took her, Eazy. I turned around, and she was gone, so I went lookin’ for her and saw the back entrance door open. By the time I got out there…” He takes another deep breath and continues, “The moment I stepped outside, the van fled. I fired shots, and they retaliated by attempting to run me over.”
My stomach sinks. “Where are you now?” I look at Rooster, and he jumps into action, grabbing his keys, hot on my heels as I bolt, making my way out of the building and to my truck.
“In my car, trying like hell to catch sight of which direction they went.”
Rooster jumps into the cab as the engine starts. “What is the vehicle description?” I question as my tires lose traction, spinning against the snow-covered parking lot as I press my foot into the gas.
“Black van with Texas license plates,” Brewer supplies.
I think about the safety of my mother and Zack. “Get a hold of the others and tell them to hit the streets. I want these fuckers found before they leave Ember Falls.” I end the call while turning my truck toward home. “Get a hold of Poet,” I bark at Rooster while calling my mom. It rings several times before going to her voicemail. “Shit!” I glance at my brother.
“He’s not pickin’ up, Prez.”
Their not answering the phone adds to the knot forming in my gut. The twenty minutes it takes me to reach my mom’s place feels like an eternity. I’m drowning in the silence filling the truck’s cab.
Finally, the truck speeds down the long road past my house until we reach my mom’s. Leaving the engine running, I jump out of the truck and rush up the porch, pulling my gun from the holster and arming myself on the way. The front door is partially open, leading to the inevitable realization that someone has entered the home. Rooster draws his weapon and proceeds to make his way around to the back of the house.
I cautiously push against the front door to open it more, but I’m met with resistance. I shove harder, budging it open another few inches, and step inside. Behind the door, lying on his side is Poet. “Fuck,” I hiss. Kneeling, I reach down, checking for his pulse, finding one. I close the front door, not needing any surprise coming up behind me, and roll Poet to look for injuries, and he groans. Shit. He took one hell of a beating. My brother’s face is a bloody mess. “Sorry, brother. I need to leave you here and find Ma.”
He slowly moves, bringing his hand to the back of his head, and when he pulls it away, his palm is painted red. Poet’s eyes flutter open. Confusion lingers before dread overtakes his battered and swollen face. His breath comes out in ragged gasps. “Prez…” he croaks. “I tried to stop them…” he says, and a weight presses down on me. “They took your Ma and the kid.”
Knowing that they have my mom, too, has me descending into a much darker place than I was before, and the desperate need to hunt down and kill every motherfucker involved tightens around my throat in a chokehold.
Rooster appears. “Shit.” He takes in the battered body of our brother, then looks at me. “No signs of your Ma and the kid.”
“They’re not here. Those bastards took them, too.”
Rooster’s expression hardens at my words. His phone pings, and he pulls it from his pocket. He taps the screen a few times. “Prez, you need to see this.” He passes the phone to me, and I glance down at the screen, where he has logged into the bar’s security feed. I play the feed from an earlier recording from the camera at the back of the bar’s entrance.
My heart is hammering its way out of my chest, dread clawing at my insides as I watch the screen. My stomach coils, spotting Noelle step out the back door with a trash bag in her hand. A black van rolls up as her back is turned while tossing the bag into the dumpster. Suddenly, the van’s back doors open, and masked men jump out.
I grip the phone.
White knuckles.
There inside the van, being held by a man wearing a black mask, is Zack, squirming like a trapped rabbit, his wrists, ankles, and mouth bound, but there are no signs of my mom. Noelle willingly climbs into the van. The men who jumped out clamber back inside behind her. At that moment, Brewer comes into the frame. He reaches for his weapon and aims at the windshield. The van lurches forward, clipping Brewer and knocking him off his feet as they speed away.
I stand. “Dammit!” I growl, pounding my fist into a wall as anger rushes through me and dread grips my throat. My fists clench to the point where my fingernails dig into my flesh. With each tick of the clock, the further these motherfuckers get, the harder it becomes to find Noelle and Zack. My body feels heavy, like a lead weight dragging me beneath the water’s surface, as the need to find my family presses down on me. The room is shrouded in an unsettling, suffocating silence while the tumultuous undertow of thoughts pulls me under.
I let them down.
I promised to keep them safe.
I failed.
I need to focus and redirect all the chaos brewing inside me. So I take a deep breath and channel it elsewhere, needing to find my family.
Kneeling, I hook my arm under one of Poet’s shoulders. “Help me get him to the truck.”
Joining my efforts, Rooster assists me in carrying our brother outside and loading him into the cab. As I climb into the truck and slam the door closed, my phone goes off again. When I take off, I place the call on speaker, heading back toward town. “What you got for me?” My grip tightens on the steering wheel, fingers pressing hard enough to ache.
“I have eyes on the target,” Brewer says.
“Where?”
“Held up in the old, abandoned Wilson grain warehouse.”
I make a U-turn in the middle of the highway and head east. “Contact the others and give them your location. I’m on my way,” I say at the end of the call.
The need to inflict pain on the men who took my family claws at my skin as I grip the wheel of my truck, my mind racing with the thought of someone putting hands on any one of them. The dread tightens around my chest like a vice as we silently drive.
I turn off the main road, and the landscape transforms into miles of snow-covered wheat fields swallowed by darkness, with the abandoned warehouse looming in the distance. My temples throb with tension as I spot the cluster of vehicles hidden behind an old gas station billboard sign. I cut my lights and ease the truck to their location. I reach over, open the glove box, and retrieve an extra handgun, already loaded.
Rooster opens the passenger door, the bitter cold filling the truck’s cab.
Poet attempts to slide out, growling and breathing heavily as he tries, pushing through the pain.
“Stay put,” I order.
“The fuck I will,” Poet bites back, though his pain weighs down his words.
“You’re no good to us, brother.” I take my shotgun down from the gun rack over his head, then dig a box of shots out from beneath the bench seat and place them in his lap. “Fuckin’ stay put. That’s an order,” I bark. Hearing no rebuttal, I exit the truck into the dark, cold night air.
“We have a count of how many are inside?” I keep my voice low.
“We’ve clocked at least four coming and going from the building,” Wire says.
“Listen, Prez, it doesn’t add up as to why they didn’t keep going. Why would they hole up in town?” Tech says.
The chilling wind whips around me, but it does little to cool the burning inside. “They have Ma, too,” I tell them, struggling to make sense of the situation.
“We know these motherfuckers are involved in the skin trade, Prez. Your mom is just another means for them to make money,” Wire says, his words hitting me like a physical blow.
Brewer clamps his hand down on my shoulder. “We will get them back, Prez.”
I look at each of my brothers, their faces bearing grim expressions of determination. They are all willing to lay down their lives for family.
“Let’s move,” I order.
We immediately shift into action and shuffle through the snow, closing in on the abandoned warehouse while keeping in the shadows. With my back pressed against the weather-worn building, I slowly creep up to a shattered window and cautiously peer inside. Most of the interior is cloaked in darkness except for a small diameter in the center of the open space, where at least five men are huddled around a fire burning in a barrel. In the dimly lit shadows a few feet away, huddled together, I spot my family, bound and blindfolded.
I look back at my brothers, holding up five fingers. Silently, we move, separating to surround the small building. With purpose, I raise my weapon, my heart beating like a war drum, and ready myself. As I turn the corner of the building, I come face to face with a heavy-set man around my height, smoking a cigarette. Over his shoulder, I notice Rooster, and before the bastard has time to react, my brother slits his throat, and he falls to his knees, holding his neck before falling face-first onto the frozen ground at my feet, his blood pooling around my boots.
I take a cleansing breath, drawing in the bitter cold, stealing myself in to what I must do and at any cost. Swinging the door open, we rush inside, catching the men standing around the warmth of the fire off-guard. I put a bullet in two men before they can react and return fire. My brothers and I span out, taking cover as bullets whiz by, piercing through the dilapidated walls. To my right, I spot one of the men pointing his gun at one of my men. Without hesitating, I aim and pull the trigger.
A few feet away, Noelle, Zack, and my mom walk into the light of the fire. Behind them are two men, one holding a gun to Zack’s head and the other motherfucker doing the same to my mom.
My heart stops.
So does the gunfire.
“You do know how to make an entrance, I’ll give you that.” Unbodied words echo through the building. “Seems I have something you want.” Heavy boots hitting against steel fill the air, and then a suited man steps from the shadows and stands within the glow of the fire’s flames. I recognize his face from the photograph.
I emerge from my location and step into the light, my weapon trained on the motherfucker talking. One of the goons makes a sudden move at me, and I shift my aim in his direction, putting a bullet in his head before taking aim once more at who I assume is their boss. We stare at each other in an intense standoff.
“You’re outnumbered motherfucker,” I seethe.
“But I’m holding all the cards, my friend.” Vincent studies me. “All I want is what is promised to me.” He walks over to Noelle and caresses her cheek with his knuckles. “I may keep her to myself for a while, use her up a bit, you know, break her in before selling her to the highest bidder. That pretty face of hers will fetch some good money.” He spews his disgusting words, and it takes every bit of self-control to keep my feet from moving.
“I bet you’re wondering why I stayed in this worthless town.” He turns and eyes me again. “You see, I wanted you to find me. There’s a debt to be paid, and I always collect the debt.” He pauses, trying to increase the tension in the room, and admittedly, it’s working. “My brother, Carlos.” He narrows his eyes at me.
This motherfucker is here to avenge his brother.
I smirk. “Your brother is rotting in a shallow grave.”
His eyes flare with anger. “A life for a life. That’s how you will settle your debt with me.”
The man holding Zack pushes him to the side, where he stumbles to the floor, then shoves Noelle to her knees, rips off the blindfold covering her eyes, and presses the gun to the back of her head. “Just in case you feel froggy during our transaction. You don’t want to see your woman take her last breath right before your eyes, do you.” His expression turns sinister. “Then again…” he pauses, and the other bastard holding my mom forces her to her knees and proceeds to remove her blindfold, “… you are getting a front-row seat to the unaliving of the woman who gave you life.”
“You want a life for a life, then take mine.” I offer myself, hoping like hell he takes the offer, though taking my life will not save his. My mom violently shakes her head in protest, her words muffled by the gag in her mouth.
“Tempting offer.” He scrubs his chin.
I suddenly spot movement in the shadows and watch Zack being slowly dragged into the darkness. A few seconds later, just behind Vincent, the shadowy figure appears again, but I can’t determine what or who it is. Then, the glow of the fire catches the gleam of a shotgun barrel, and I know who is waiting for the right opportunity to present itself.
“I accept your offer. Toss your weapon,” Vincent orders.
“Let her go first,” I demand before unarming myself.
Vincent glances at his man and nods, and my mom is lifted to her feet and shoved forward. Still bound, she staggers out of harm’s way to the safety of one of my men.
I lay the gun at my feet and kick it across the floor, then look at Noelle, her eyes soaked with silent tears. She tries speaking, but her words are muffled.
“Tell your men to stand down,” Vincent demands.
“It’s been a good run, brothers,” I say to my men and start to raise my hands. That’s when the room explodes with a loud bang, and Vincent collapses to the floor. Reaching in my back pocket, I retrieve the handgun I took from the truck’s glovebox, quickly take aim at the motherfucker holding Noelle, and put a bullet through the middle of his forehead. The last bastard alive decides to be a coward and runs, but Tech appears, stopping him before he reaches the exit and fires the final shot.
I rush to Noelle. Overcome with waves of emotions, her body trembles, so I work fast to remove her binding and gag, then pull her into me. “It’s okay, baby. I got you.”
“Zack!” she cries, looking desperately around the room.
“He’s okay, baby,” I assure her.
Poet emerges from the shadows, looking like he has one foot in the grave, with Zack at his side.
Noelle leaves my embrace, rushing to her brother.
I look at Poet.
“I don’t want to fuckin’ hear it,” he breathes through the pain.
I clamp my hand down on his shoulder. “You look like you could use a beer.”
“Brother, I need somethin’ stronger than that.” He carries the shotgun in one hand and holds his side with the other.
Noelle and Zack join me as Rooster walks over with my mom. I look down at Zack and scruff his hair. “You okay, buddy?”
“Yeah.” He kicks his shoe at the dirty floor.
I turn and face my mom. “Ma.”
She smiles. “Your father would be proud,” she says before she hugs me. She then steps aside for Noelle to take her place.
I gather my woman into my arms, then reach for Zack. “You too, kid.” I hold them tight.
Tonight’s events nearly took everything from me, and I make a silent vow never to allow it happen again. “Let’s go home,” I say, my voice filled with relief and determination.
Two Days Later
The air in the room is thick with the stench of days-old garbage and sour beer from the empty cans riddling the floor. It sickens me that Zack lived in this hell hole. I lean against the back of the sofa, with a cigarette resting between my fingers. Every tick of the clock magnifies my resolve. I made a promise, and I intend to keep it.
My thoughts wrap around Noelle and her brother’s impact on my life in such a short time. They both deserve better than the life they were given, and I plan to be the one who gives it to them. I take a drag of the cigarette, pulling the nicotine into my lungs and holding it there until it burns before exhaling. I watch the smoke curl from my cigarette. Beams from headlights flood the living room with light as a vehicle pulls into the driveway.
Seconds later, I’m hidden in the shadows again.
A gun in my hand.
Waiting.
I listen as Rob fumbles with keys to unlock the door before it finally swings open. He quickly closes it behind him and stumbles through the living room to the kitchen. Rob opens the fridge, cracks a beer, then tilts his head back and chugs it down. Then he moves down the hall toward the bathroom, where I hear him taking a piss. I stub the remnants of my cigarette into the ashtray on the coffee table and wait. It’s not long before Rob stumbles back into the living room. The asshole turns on a nearby lamp, his eyes widening when he finds me sitting on the sofa.
“Who the fuck are you?” He slurs his words.
I raise my weapon, aiming at his chest. “Death.”
I pull the trigger.