52. Shane
52
SHANE
“D umbasses over there.” Stripes approached. He indicated two of Estrada’s men, who were currently still tied up and sitting on the front lawn where we were. “Did not think to make sure they were the two individuals they'd previously identified from our table in Manny’s. Those two guys, who were identified as Harper and Justin, Kali’s friends, went out the same door, but we’re pretty sure they did not go out the back way and instead probably turned to leave from the front.”
“Which means they would’ve walked right past us when we were having our ‘To Do’ with Brandon Jax.”
“Pretty sure. We’re coordinating with Monroe now, Jax’s brother-in-law, the one who does not like us. They picked up the trail where the real Harper and Justin are. Just got off the phone with…” He hesitated a moment. “With Monroe’s sister, she’s also a bounty hunter, and she said they found two airline tickets booked for Vegas.”
“Are you shitting me?”
He started chuckling. “Nope. They were booked the following morning, so when Kali and Aly were at the hospital, their friends were boarding a plane for Sin City. Bren–er, Monroe’s sister, said they’re looking for a hotel they might’ve been using.”
“There’s been no attempt for them to contact Kali or Aly?”
“No, and Bren, Monroe’s sis–”
“I know who Bren is. You don’t have to keep explaining.”
“Right.” His shoulders relaxed a little. “Bren said that Aly was taken in to get a new phone, but she was just able to sync it to her old one. She tried calling Harper, but he’s got his phone off.”
Roadie had come over to listen in, and he began laughing. “So that means either they were also taken by a way smarter Estrada team or those two guys went and got hitched and don’t have their phones on because they’re still partaking in Sin City and the many pleasurable activities the city has to offer.”
Kali was pacing back and forth on the front porch. I’d tried to get her to go inside, away from Estrada’s men and where Katie was, but she wouldn’t budge. She kept shooting me looks so didn’t take a genius to know she wanted an update asap.
“Okay.” I asked Heckler, who’d come to join our circle. “What’s the update on where Estrada is?”
“They’re in Amarillo.”
Right. Fuck. That meant we’d need to get word to Connor, so he could do what he wanted to do and then set up the attack for Estrada. “You guys make the call to get these guys picked up?”
Roadie raised his hand. “I did. We’re coordinating with local bounty hunters so all of us won’t be here when they come to get them.”
“Good.” I motioned to the two guys who none of us knew that were now sitting on the other end of the porch. “Did they get identified and call whoever they needed to call?”
“We did. They were just two guys hanging out at Manny’s that night. Went outside to smoke a joint, and wrong place, wrong time. Bounty hunters are going to take them in too. Police will want to question them.”
“They been instructed on what not to say?”
Roadie flashed me a grin. “They were given a story to tell when asked how they came to be rescued. They’ve been informed that we didn’t rescue them. The bounty hunters coming to pick them actually did. They seemed amenable, especially when we found their families on social media. Good old social media. Always so informative of tagging friends and family in all those pictures where they like to brag, or maybe that’s just how I take it. I might be jaded.”
Corvette snorted. “I can think of a lot of words to describe you, but sure as shit that jaded ain’t one of them.”
Heckler said over them, cutting through the bullshit, “When are we leaving? We need time to set everything up for Estrada. We’re going to kill this time, right?” He was always the most serious of everyone. Also older since he was in his forties.
Everyone got real quiet, real quick.
“What if we tell someone in law enforcement who Marco’s second-in-commands are. Someone who can actually do something about them.”
I shook my head. “We’ve thought of everything. Everything. No one will get to them in time before they’ll all be transferred out and somewhere else. He’s got everyone in his pocket there. We checked everyone .” But… Goddamn. There was one chance. One shot, but it was such a long one that I didn’t dare put any stock into it.
It was a wish on a star, that sort of shot. But looking at Kali right now as she was trying to hear us, all the way across the lawn, and knowing she couldn’t, I knew I had to try. For Connor, for Kali. I had to make the call.
But everything needed to be ready.
“Who’s got the current line to Connor?” There was a guy in Connor’s prison that had a cell. The number tended to change frequently. We were never told the reason why that happened, but we would get an update on the current number. That person operated on the basis that if we sent a message, it would be only one time, and he would need to give that message to Connor. The phone operator didn't know what the message was about, or even who was on our end. It was a deal set up, and when that message was delivered, we’d pay that person a fuckton of money, but if that person also ratted on Connor, all that money would go away. It never surprised me what people would do for money, and a ton of it too. It’s a currency that made the world go round so we used it when we needed to.
“I do.” Christopher Raith, Maxwell’s nephew and also known as his biker name, Wraith, raised his hand. “Once you tell me to send the message, I will.”
“Good.” I skimmed the group. Heckler was right. We needed to get set up. “Let’s get going.”
As they moved to do what they needed to do before once again, going into another battle, I stepped aside and pulled my phone out.
KALI
Shane wasn’t talking.
I was going with the flow by now, and knowing they still needed to handle Estrada, I was figuring he was next on their list. Claudia had no clue. I don’t know what she was told, or if she’d been filled in by Machete. I was guessing not because she seemed almost chipper.
I didn’t have the heart to tell her and I’d been thinking of all the different scenarios to get Connor out of this, but I kept coming back to the part where he was in prison. He was in prison . I couldn’t get to him. I couldn’t get him out. Not in the time I needed, and not ever.
Shane was right. My brother was never getting out.
I hated this plan, but it was a Connor plan. Had everything Connor about it. Of course he’d put himself in the line of fire to help someone he considered a brother. Of course he’d be adamant to make sure his family was also taken care of, because Shane didn’t know this, but I knew that was part of why Connor put all this together.
It was as much to take care of his family as to help Shane. In his mind he was killing two birds with one stone. Shane. Us. And a third might’ve been that he was choosing to go out how he wanted to go out.
God. I didn’t know. How could I?
I just loved my brother. I wanted him back.
But he killed a judge’s kid. He confessed to it, knowing he was signing his life away when he did. He still did it because my brother was a good person in his heart. Did stupid stuff, seriously atrociously dumb stuff like getting addicted to drugs and sinking so low to putting himself in that judge’s house in the first place. But he pleaded guilty because he killed a kid, and I couldn’t help but to wonder if that was the last part. My brother couldn’t take the guilt?
My brother would never be free again in his life, but I didn’t want this to be the way he went out.
God, no. Please.
“You going to clue me in on whatever the fuck is going on? You’re wound up tight. Your man’s wound up tight. Machete is not making eye contact with me lately, and now everyone just got real serious and my tits are so perked up from all the tension in the air that I have those tied up assholes eyeballing me.”
I started crying.
I couldn’t stop it, and I couldn’t control it.
The dam burst and my sister jumped back ten feet from me. “Oh, fuck my tits. She’s lost her mind.”
I heard gravel crunching and then Shane’s voice, “Go elsewhere, Claudia.”
“I–”
“It’s not a request.” Then his hand touched my arm, and I didn’t have the strength to fight him.
I should hate him, I knew this. And maybe a part of me always would, but for the life of me, I could not think of a way out of this. Not one that wouldn’t get a whole ton more people dead.
So because of all of that, because I was gathering up my strength to do what I just now decided to do, I let him hold me. And I let him pull me away from the group.
He folded his arms around me, his head burying into my neck. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”
My whole body jerked on a shudder. My baby brother was going to die, and I could do nothing to stop it. What new hell was I stepping into? “He can’t go.”
Shane stiffened right before he lifted his head. A dull and almost dead look was in his eyes. It washed over me, and a third fucking shiver wracked my body. “He set all this in motion. He did. Not me. Not my club. He told me he was going to do this whether or not my club followed through. I visited him thirty-nine times. Thirty-nine, Kali. He took me off the list so I couldn't do it for the fortieth time. This shit didn’t happen overnight. It took an entire year of his life to plan it. You tell me, knowing everything I told you, you tell me what to do. Don’t go through with it? You tell me. What should I do?”
“Not fucking yell at her, how about that?”
I tensed because someone had overheard.
And I tensed even more recognizing Claudia’s voice, but I was going over what he just said. He gave nothing away. She wouldn’t know any details, but the guilt I was feeling at not telling my sister? A black hole opened in my stomach and it was swirling and it was angry and it wanted to eat my soul out of me.
Was this how Shane felt?
I reached back, not intending to, but once I touched him, I couldn’t pull my hand away either. “It’s fine, Claudia.”
“My right buttocks, it’s fine. He’s yelling at you about our brother. First, what the fuck are you talking about and second, DON’T YELL AT MY SISTER, YOU BIG FUCKING ASS–” she cut off with a gasped cry, but then began yelling again, “Put me down! Marshall. What are you doing? That’s my sister…” She trailed off when he put her down, but he shoved a helmet over her head, lifted her onto the back of his bike, and a second later, he was in front of her and they were leaving.
“Yep. She’s all woman, that’s for sure.”
A few of the other guys had migrated over. That was Corvette.
Roadie laughed. “They’re going the wrong way.”
“No.” Shane moved in behind me, his hand coming to my waist. I didn’t want to, but I felt more centered at his touch, at feeling him at my back. He added over my head, “He’s not. He’s taking her home.”
I leaned back into him.
His arm curled around my waist, his hand splaying out over my stomach.
“Get on your bikes. It’s time to go.”
He sounded so tired when he said it, and my heart was aching.
But I moved forward because I had every intention of being there when they took Marco Estrada down.
I didn’t call, but I texted.
Me: Dad, I love you. I’m proud to be your daughter. I’m proud of who you are as a man and a father. You are the best person I know in my life.
Me: I just wanted to tell you that.
Me: I really love you, Dad.
Me: I gotta turn my phone off. I hope you’re not breaking a hip with the Old Gents.
Me: If you are, call your doc.