Chapter 23—Bass
“I s she alive?” Kopper asks me as I check her pulse.
“Yeah, for now. Where’s General?” I hold her closer as I look over her wounds. She’s been hit a few times, and her face got smashed. She’s hurt, but I don’t see anything life-threatening at the moment. Who the fuck really knows from looking alone.
“He’s working on Chains. He got hit in the leg.” Kooper looks around at the destruction, his gun still drawn.
He’s had my flank since we left the bar, taking out suits right along with me. We got done from doing a sweep inside once the outside was clear. We rounded the back, and that’s when I saw Milly on her knees getting hit. I screamed for her to stay down as I tried to cover her, take out the threat, but the damn fool got up again. Kooper got the last asshole aiming at her, but not before he got another shot off at her. I barely caught her in time before she would have slammed her face on the pavement, making it twice as fucked up as it is now.
“Damn.” We’re bikers, but fuck, we never expected this. Sure, we have precautions in place when we’re planning for shit to hit the fan, but this was out of left field. We were unprepared, but we still took out all but a few who got away.
“You see where they went?” Law asks as he comes close to us, seeing Milly in my arms. “General! Get your ass over here,” he hollers, and I nod at him in gratitude .
“Nah, they took off before I could get a tracker on them,” Kooper says.
“I got one on them.”
We all look at the fucked-up prospect, coming out of the smoke and debris like a damn ghost. He’s beat up, but he’s walking. Barefoot. I saw him take the hit when the car plowed into him. I know he lost his shoes on impact. That he’s standing is a damn miracle. Even more magical is that he had the damn brains to put a tracker on one of those SUVs.
“You look like hell,” Law says as he holds out a hand for him to shake.
“Feel like it too. The tracker is one of my own, not part of the club. I took it off my bike.”
“You track your own bike?” Kooper asks, jerking his head back.
“Yeah. Wouldn’t be the first time I was in a bar and it got stolen. I got the app that alerts me of where it goes, but there’s a distance issue on it. We’ve got to go now before it gets out of range.”
“Yo.” General hustles over, doc bag in hand and accompanied by Bulldog and Domino. “Shit.” One look at Milly and he’s on his knees by me, pulling her out of my arms and putting her softly on the ground. I know enough about field dressing to get the hell out of the way when the experts arrive.
“What can you tell me?” he asks me as he checks her pulse and then looks at her wounds.
“Not much. Saw her take two bullets before I could get to her. Her nose is busted up, but I don’t know when that happened or where she got the other bullets from. I counted four, and I think they’re through and through.”
“Fucking miracle if she makes it out of this without some serious issues,” General mutters before getting to work.
“What do we know?” Bulldog asks. He was with us when we were getting intel on Ivan, wanting us for a job, but like the rest of us, he went running out when we saw the main gate get hit.
“Not much. Flint’s checking in at our other places, but nothing else seems to be hit. Just here,” Law says as we all watch General do his shit.
“Who the fuck are these guys? We thinking Devils Damned?” Domino asks.
“Russians,” I say as I stand. “I heard a few of them talking before we took them out. And they took Ollie.”
“Fuck me sideways,” Domino grits out.
“We’ve got a lock on them, but we’ve got to go now. What bikes we got that work?” Law asks no one in particular, as I see the mess of what’s most of our rides from being hit.
“Four didn’t get hit. Yours, mine, Kooper’s, and Domino’s,” the prospect supplies.
“Right, tell Flint to track our cells. The others are with me. Bulldog, put us on lockdown,” Law calls out as he heads for his bike.
“Already did. I have all brothers heading here now or to get our families to bring them in,” Bulldog supplies as he walks away to assess the damage or just to help a fallen brother.
Fuckers knew how to hit us, but I don’t think anyone is worse off than Milly. Or I fucking pray they aren’t. Having the mother chapter hit is going to cause a fucking ricochet of shit. Ivan fucked up if this was him. And if it’s not, I will beat every damn Russian I can find till I figure out who did this to our home.
“I’m going,” I tell Domino, taking one last glance at Milly before I look up. His keys are already dangling from his fingertips.
“Figured. Go get your girl’s kid.”
I don’t tell him he’s wrong; there isn’t any time. I just grab the keys, jog over to his ride, and start her up before I follow in line and head toward Ollie.
I’m bringing that kid home, and his home is with Milly and us.
We park our bikes outside a group of warehouses the signal led us to. We estimate that we’re about ten minutes behind the assholes. Flint’s already in the air with drones, but he can’t get a read on how many are in this place.
I get off the bike, changing the clip out of my gun for a new one I had at the ready.
“Here,” Kooper says. I look up and catch the shotgun he tosses at me. “Took the liberty of restocking our shit before we left. Not much, only what was close.”
I nod in gratitude as I see him toss an extra set of guns to both Law and the prospect—who still doesn’t have shoes on. Not sure how it feels to ride for as long as we did barefoot, but the guy’s got my vote to get in no matter which way this goes .
“You and Kooper go around the side. I’ll take the prospect and go through the front. We’ll meet in the middle,” Law declares.
“We going in hot?” Kooper asks, but I pay him no mind. I plan to shoot any fucker who gets in my way, and I don’t give a fuck if it makes noise or not.
“Only go silent if you think it’ll help in securing the kid. Otherwise, take out as many fuckers as you can. Flint already has the boys on the way. We don’t need to have all the fun if we can leave some for them to get some revenge on.”
With that, Law and the prospect go one way, and we go the other.
I’ve done enough seek-and-destroy missions that it comes second nature with Kooper at my six. I might not have trained with him exclusively for the past year, but he knows his shit and keeps up. Guy was a fucking diplomatic security agent before he came to us. He knows how to clear a place and look for civilians at the same time.
We find the side door locked. Koop takes his knife out to jimmy the lock, but we don’t have time for that, so I just shoot the damn thing.
“Or option number two,” he deadpans as I kick the door open and scan the area before I walk in.
No one comes running, so we keep going down the hallway, checking each door. If it’s locked, we keep moving. We can come back to the locked ones after we clear the others. Koop keeps a look back to make sure no one comes out behind us.
At the end of the hall, we slow as the room opens completely. We move past the crates of who the fuck knows what and then still when I see what’s in the center of the room.
Ollie. Kid’s fucking strapped to a chair with tape over his mouth. Nothing else is around him for a good twenty feet.
A trap if I ever saw one.
I look around and see no one. I notice there’s an overhang, and I’m not stupid enough to think it’s empty.
Ollie sees me, and I’ll give it to the kid. He barely moves to give me away as we lock eyes, but he confirms my suspicions as he looks up and around. A good indicator if ever there was one.
I nod to Koop, and he goes in the opposite direction of me as we spread out, checking behind each crate to make sure we’re alone. As I take each step, I keep my eyes up and start seeing the fucking problem. At least a dozen men are up top and strapped.
“No need to hide, Hound.” The boom of a voice has me looking around and seeing speakers. “We know you’re here.”
I wait a beat, but no one speaks up again, so I decide to give my position away and speak up for the group. I haven’t seen Law and the prospect, so I can only assume they aren’t able to reveal themselves.
I stay behind a crate as I look up. I’m directly below a corner, so I see about three-quarters of what’s above me. “And yet we didn’t invite you to our place.”
“A shame, I’m sure. Maybe next time you’ll take my inquiry with all due haste.”
“Ivan,” I confirm and receive a chuckle in response.
“Dah. So smart for a puppy. Maybe I shouldn’t let my men kill all of you. I might want to keep a mutt or two. ”
“Show yourself.” I move, looking for my target. I’d give anything to put a bullet between this asshole’s eyes.
“Such manners.” He tsks over the speakers. “Something I’ll have to train you on, I see. One does not make demands, dog boy. One accepts rules.”
“Oh yeah, and what rule is that?”
“That a son should be with his father.”
“Ain’t a father if he’s fucked in the head. More like a sperm donor.”
“Let’s skip with the name-calling. Why don’t you just go back to your compound, or what’s left of it? You can keep the girl. Fuck her or do what you want with her, I don’t care. The boy is mine. No need to spill any more blood of your own to take something that doesn’t belong to you. Something that does nothing but cause problems.”
Ollie gives up pretending not to see me and keeps eyes with me. He’s not screaming, but I see the tears running down his cheeks. Fucking hate that he’s hearing his father say this about him. No kid should hear their parent say this.
“You’re wrong.”
“Dah?”
“He belongs to us. He’s family, and he’s my friend.” I nod to Ollie, who just closes his eyes as he cries harder at my words. Shudders rack his body, but still not a peep from him.
“Friends come and go. Forget the kid and this ends here and now.”
“So, that’s it? You just want the kid? Not interested in a business relationship?” I look around once more. I can’t see faces, but I see legs from this angle. Enough pairs to let me know that my luck on these types of missions might just be up.
“Oh, I was. But imagine my surprise when I send out my inquiry the same day I have my boys drive by, and they see my property just sitting out front. I heard you were good, but I never thought you were that good that you already knew what I wanted.”
Ollie’s eyes open wide as they search for me, and I shake my head. No way am I going to let this kid think I would betray him so easily, especially if these are his last moments alive.
“The fact that you declined was the final nail in your coffin,” Ivan continues. “You caused your friends’ deaths, not me.”
“Hate to break it to you, but none of my boys died. Those were all yours.” I smirk at that. I’m pretty sure it’s true, but even if it isn’t, I would lie my ass off. Guy’s too confident for his own good. Ego gets you killed. It makes mistakes.
A beat of silence followed by some Russian I don’t understand. “A mistake on their part. Leave now before I tell my men to fire.”
“You fire, you risk the kid.”
“Rather him dead than with you.”
Several shots go off from above, none aimed at me or Ollie. I walk out from under the deck just as Kooper does the same, and we start picking off what we see. Their attention is on someone behind them, and I can only assume it’s my brothers. Not sure which ones, but any are better than none.
A few turn back to us, but Koop has it controlled as I get to Ollie and use my trench knife on the ropes. He stills for a second but relaxes while I cut them off. I took the damn thing from my house this morning, intending to give it to Casper. Didn’t want it in the house anymore. But between getting my dick sucked and the compound blowing up, I didn’t have time. For a piece of history, the fucker is still sharp, and I cut through the bindings easily.
“Got to move,” Koop says as a few bullets fly past us.
I take Ollie and push him ahead of us to the back of the room, where crates block us from direct fire. We stay behind the cover but don’t give up shooting.
We take out a few more until we hear nothing but some grunting from above. We both look out as we see Law struggling with someone by the banister.
It happens in slow motion and all at once.
A shot rings out.
Law stumbles back, then falls over the railing.
I yell. Koop does, too, or maybe that’s just still me. I fire once more as I rush to catch Law, and the guy left standing above falls over the railing too. My boss hits before I can make it more than a few feet in his direction. I push him to his back and see the blood coming out of his chest. His eyes are open, but there isn’t a pulse. Not a goddamn pulse.
“Fuck! Call General!” I scream at Kooper as I start CPR. But each time I breathe into his mouth, blood pushes out of his bullet wound. Still, I pound on him and do it again. I look over at the bubbles of blood and see little hands covering the wound and trying to push the blood back in. No matter how much I work, it just gets worse.
There’s nothing I can do. Not even when the sound of engines fills the warehouse with a roar. Not when General comes in and pushes me aside to work on him .
Nothing can be done.
Nothing.
Because the boss is dead.
Law is gone.