Chapter 31
31
Jagger
W e find Patches in Merlin, working at a chop shop on the southern edge of the city. Precaution dictates we watch the place for a while before we go in. It’s early morning, and they’ve only just opened for business.
“Rory was right,” Diesel says, sitting casually on his bike. “Patches didn’t go too far.”
“He’s probably holding on, hoping,” I say. “Waiting for Marlo to take him back.”
“Not with Calvin in the picture,” Knox grumbles, briefly checking his phone. “Robyn’s okay. She and Kyra are at the cabin. So far, so good. I asked her to text us every other hour or so.”
I nod slowly. “Good. At least they’re safe.”
“How do we do this?” Diesel asks as he gets up and stretches his arms. He yawns, steam rolling from his lips, as he grunts and gets his blood moving. “We don’t have all day.”
“I saw Patches and two other guys in there,” I say.
“Yeah, and those two look scrawny as hell, not muscle, so Patches is pretty much on his own,” Diesel replies.
I dismount my Harley and look around once more. It’s pretty quiet at this hour. A few workers make their way across the street—there’s a diner that’s open by the looks of it. I can smell the fried eggs and bacon from here. A couple of shops are in the middle of rolling up their shutters, but that’s about it.
“I’ll take the lead on this one,” I tell the guys. “Diesel, you’ll be our last resort. I’ll try reasoning with the guy first.”
“Your last resort,” he scoffs. “Aren’t you dramatic.”
“The only thing dramatic about us is the impact of your fists,” I shoot back. “We might need that. Take it as a compliment, brother.”
Knox chuckles lightly and motions for me to go ahead. “By all means, lead the way, Jag.”
Patches is busy looking under the hood of an old Mustang—a vintage model most likely from the late sixties, dark blue with two white stripes running along the top.
“Oh, damn, she’s a beauty,” I exclaim upon reaching him.
He straightens his back and gives me a brief look. I respond with a cool grin, and for a split second, Patches doesn’t recognize me. When he does, however, I see the shift in his brown eyes and the speed with which his hand reaches for the gun holstered underneath his sweater.
“Don’t be stupid,” I add, patting the gun on my belt. “I’m a quicker draw than you, and you know it.”
Patches remains still and quiet for a good minute. Beside me, Knox and Diesel patiently wait while I analyze the bastard from head to toe. I remember seeing him around Marlo in the past, though I never really paid much attention to most of her goons.
“What do you want?” he finally asks, his shoulders slumping. He knows we’re not going anywhere, and he’s no longer under the Hugheses protection either, otherwise, he would’ve been aggressive.
“We need to talk,” I say.
“Then talk.”
“I mean, we need to ask you some questions, and you need to answer them,” I reply.
“I got nothing to say to you or any other Rider. I’m out of the Hughes family as you can see,” he says. “I don’t know anything.”
I give him a wry smile. “I’m more interested in what you saw and what you know up to the moment you left Marlo. We’ve got the present covered.”
“Do you? Have it covered, I mean?” he scoffs, a bitter smirk tugs at the corner of his mouth as he wipes the grease from his huge hands with a dirty rag. “Last I heard, Marlo had her boot up your asses.”
“You got laid off,” I say, cutting right to the chase. “I thought you and Marlo were the ‘forever couple,’ yet here you are, working for peanuts at a chop shop in Oregon’s sphincter. What gives, Patches? What happened?”
“That’s my business, not yours.”
“I’m interested. We’re interested.”
“You’ve got nothing to give me that might make me want to tell you anything. Don’t you know that’s how the world works? You give and you get.”
Diesel clears his throat. “Do you want me to step in now?” he asks me in a calm tone, “or do you want me to give you until dinner?”
Patches’s attitude changes subtly. There’s tension in his shoulders. I need to take advantage of this.
“You remember me,” I tell him. “And if you remember me, surely you remember Diesel here too, right?” He doesn’t answer, so I drive my point home. “Then you know what he’s capable of. Given the shitstorm we’re in the middle of right now, we don’t care about whose bones we have to break in order to protect what we’ve worked so hard to build. So let me present you with you two options. One: You talk to me willingly. Two: You talk to me after Diesel is done with you. What’s it going to be?”
He thinks about it for a few moments, then sets the rag aside and turns to face us. “Marlo let me go. After twelve years, she told me my services were no longer needed. More than a decade spent taking care of her, watching her back, protecting her from every Tom, Dick, and Harry who foolishly thought they could muscle their way into her territory.”
“Tom, Dick, and Harry would’ve failed anyway,” I reply. “The Rogue Riders have been keeping Redwood clean and happy for a long time.”
He sighs deeply. “But not anymore, huh?”
“Tell us about Marlo and Calvin. What are they up to?”
“That piece of shit,” Patches hisses. “A snake in the grass.”
“How so?”
“Like you don’t know him. Wasn’t he one of yours?”
“I need details, man. I need something to cut him out of this whole thing.”
Patches gives me a hard look. “You’re going after them? Marlo too?”
“Honestly, I don’t want to. We’ve had a peaceful four years since Calvin went to prison. We thought Marlo was going to repurpose her operations into something less poisonous for Redwood and the district.”
“You actually thought she was just going to lay off?” He chuckles. “That woman has been scheming her way back into the dope business since the minute you dismantled her first dealing spot. She’ll never stop.”
Knox exhales sharply. “But you’re not happy about the way she pushed you aside, are you? Maybe we can work out an agreement here. I’m more than happy to promise you that we’ll let the lawmen take care of Marlo. We won’t touch her.”
“What lawmen? Ain’t no lawmen around but the ones she partnered up with, brother. The sheriff can’t do a damn thing about it, and he’ll learn that the hard way soon enough.”
“What are you talking about?” I ask, concern tightening in my throat.
“Ask yourselves how come Calvin got out of prison so early? How come his parole officer hasn’t come around to check on him yet when he is so clearly in cahoots with some criminal elements in and around Redwood?”
“She’s got a cop on her payroll,” Diesel mutters.
Patches shakes his head. “Not a cop, a Fed. Someone at the DEA is working with Marlo, man. Didn’t I hear something about the DEA raiding your club?”
“Shit,” I breathe, putting two and two together with lightning speed. “Frank Spalding.”
“I don’t know their names. I know there’s a couple of them at least, maybe a whole crew gone rogue within the DEA, looking to rebuild an operation in the county. Marlo’s got the supply routes and the muscle. Calvin’s got the know-how and inside knowledge of the Riders, which is why your asses are getting railroaded as we speak.”
My blood boils. Rarely do I find myself overcome with this kind of fury, but Calvin always seems to bring out the worst in me. “Did Calvin ever mention having someone inside our club?”
“I kept my conversations with him to a minimum. Hell, the minute he walked into Marlo’s house, and she practically swooned all over him like a lovestruck teenager, I knew my clock had run out. She’s always had the hots for that prick, even when he was married. I talked Marlo out of doing something nasty to the girl more than once, mainly because there was a kid involved. I told Marlo there had to be limits.”
“She’s been waiting a long time for Calvin then,” Knox says.
“If the DEA is crooked, we’re pretty much fucked,” Diesel adds. “We have to figure out a way to go above Spalding’s head. They have their own equivalent of internal affairs over there. Who the fuck do we talk to about this?”
I briefly pull him aside. “Our Marines are spread far and wide. We’ll have to make some calls. Something’s got to give, right?”
“We’re out of time, fellas,” Knox chimes in. “We might have to take a different approach.”
“How the fuck are we supposed to fight off a crooked bunch of DEA agents, Marlo Hughes, and her army of drug dealers? Plus, the Colombians. They’ll want payback for the two bodies we dropped at that train yard,” I say.
Patches points somewhere to our left. “Are they with you?”
I hear the engines rumbling down the road. By the time I turn my head, they’re close. Too close. Lights flashing.
POP. POP. POP.
“Get down!” I shout.
A hail of bullets envelops the entire open area of the chop shop.
Sparks fly.
My shoulder burns. I hiss and drop to the ground.
Patches collapses, riddled with bullets. I watch as the light leaves his eyes. The last of his breath rattling as he settles into a puddle of his own blood.
“Move back,” Knox orders.
Our instincts kick in. Diesel whips his semiautomatic out. He fires a few rounds into the five killers riding past us. Two of them fall, their roadsters sliding across the pavement with an ear-piercing screech. The other three make it out, speeding up the road until they’re out of our reach.
“Fucking hell,” Knox says and runs after them.
Without hesitation, I join him. Diesel too.
There’s a junction up ahead. The riders slow down. They don’t see us yet. They’re too busy looking both ways before they turn right.
“Get them!” Knox says.
We empty our clips into the three riders.
POP-POP-POP-POP.
The projectiles fly with vengeance fueling their path. Only one or two miss their mark. The rest pierce through our attackers, blood spraying out. They fall and roll over, tangled with one another. Their motorcycles slide gruesomely along the pavement.
“Fucking pricks,” Diesel says, panting as he rushes over to make sure they’re dead.
Knox and I stand on the street corner, our breaths ragged as our minds catch up to all this insanity. My heart is racing. But the rage within me is damn near impossible to contain. It happened fast. There was no time for thinking. We had to survive, and then we had to fight back.
“Now she knows who the fuck she’s dealing with,” Knox says. “Fucking Marlo.”
“Yeah, they’re hers,” Diesel mutters as he walks back with a handful of wallets. “I recognize two of them. Hood rats. They had no business riding motorcycles in the first place.”
“She’s trying to influence public opinion,” I conclude. “Making it seem like the Rogue Riders are turning against one another.”
Knox turns back. In less than a minute, we’re back at our bikes, putting our helmets on and getting ready to roll out of here. The cops will soon respond to a bunch of frantic 911 calls, and the last thing we need with the crooked DEA people hanging over our heads is questions regarding our involvement in a drive-by shooting that left a bunch of folks dead.
“It’s getting uglier,” I say, turning the key in the ignition. The sound of my Harley awakening is enough to soothe my senses, albeit partially.
“It’s going to get even worse,” Diesel warns us. “They were either tailing us or somebody gave away our location.”
“Nobody knew we’d be here,” I say. “Not even Samson.”
“And we took different turns and roads precisely to avoid catching a tail,” Knox adds.
I glance back at the chop shop. Patches is still very much dead, but I can’t see his colleagues anywhere. “It could’ve been someone else,” I reply, “maybe from the garage. Not sure it matters at this point.”
“You’re right, it doesn’t matter,” Knox says. “What matters is that Marlo is getting brazen. And she’s got some DEA agents on her side, not just Calvin.”
It puts Robyn and Kyra in even greater danger.
Not to mention our club.
Everything we’ve worked so hard for is blowing up before our eyes, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to let Marlo or anybody else take anything more from us.
This ends now.