Chapter 33 Maxwell
Maxwell
Adrenaline surges through me. Most would shy away from a shootout, but I find it exciting in a fucked-up way. Luca and the other brothers went back to the club, but Warren and I headed over to Darius’s. We used to hang out there before we patched into the club, having never joined Darius’s crew.
I want to fight, fuck, and drink, and I don’t care for the order they come in. But and these days there is always a fucking but, I have to stay focused. There will be no partying and letting loose for me tonight. The club needs to know where the Hades Hogs are based.
I slump my ass in one of the patio chairs on Darius’s decking area and accept the beer someone I don’t recognise passes my way.
Darius and Jermaine look to one another and then at me and Warren.
“Why do you look like you’ve just been in a fight?” Darius smirks.
“Cause we have,” Warren tells him. “Got into it with the fuckin’ Hog fuckers, came straight here.”
“Our crew came across them this morning. Fought till the police arrived. Joey got himself arrested but made bail an hour ago,” Jermaine tells us.
Darius sits forward. “I’ve got a few of my boys out looking too, one says they saw a couple of them riding out of the city.”
“You think they’re not staying in the city?” I ask.
“It would make sense. We’ve been looking for weeks. Usually you can’t do shit in this city without everyone knowing about it.”
I want these assholes found, taken care of, and out of our lives, I’m so fucking bored, it physically hurts.
I down my beer and across the yard, under the string lights is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. Silver wavy hair falls to just below her shoulders, her eyes rimmed black with makeup, but it doesn’t take anything away from the brightest green eyes in history.
Gold necklaces, various pendants, hang around her slender neck.
Her fingers covered in sparkling gold and diamond rings.
A twinkle above her bellybutton, another piercing.
The body of a Goddess never seen on planet earth.
I can’t look away, not even to see who she is talking to.
I couldn’t give a crap. I want to hear what her voice sounds like. I bet she sounds like angels singing.
I find myself standing, ignoring my brother when he asks where I’m going. The silver beauty walks away from the guys she was talking with and stops by a cooler. I follow and join her, grabbing another beer for myself.
“I’m Max.”
She rakes her gaze up and down the length of my body and arches her brow.
“Hey, Max.”
Her voice, just like thought it would be, sounds like musical angels.
“Do you have a name?”
“Of course I do.” She laughs.
She throws me off. “Am I not allowed to know it?”
“I don’t give out such details to just anyone. Didn’t your momma teach you not to talk to strangers?”
“My mom tried teaching me a lot, I never listened.”
“Most sons don’t,” she mutters.
“So? Are you gonna tell me your name?”
In answer, she turns and walks off. Instead of humiliation, I grin. She’s fucking perfect.
Making my way back to the decking area, I ask Darius, “Who’s the woman with silver hair?”
He and Jermaine both laugh.
“What? What’s so fuckin’ funny?”
Warren watches on, staying quiet.
“That would be Ruby. Unfortunately for you, she’s off limits.”
“Why?”
“She’s Joey’s cousin. He’s made it violently clear she can be spoken to, but nothing else,” Darius tells me.
“Which one is Joey?”
Darius scans the back yard and points out an average sized, average looking guy. It doesn’t look like he has a violent bone in his body.
“And what would he do if I were to ask his cousin out?”
Jermaine slowly rolls his eyes to mine and smirks. “You’re thinking he doesn’t look like much of a threat, but I assure you, he’ll have a knife to your throat faster than you’d see him coming.”
“Sounds like foreplay.”
“You’re a little fucked up, ain’t ya?”
I shrug and try finding the silver beauty again. She’s sat with her cousin now and laughs at something someone else says.
The cousin is a new challenge and one I accept if it means getting closer to Ruby.
Darius’s phone rings and while he’s on the phone, Warren leans over, and says, “We should head out. Look around before heading back to the club.”
“Sure.”
Darius’s call ends and he jumps up to his feet.
“My boys have found their base. Just outside the city, Cross and Bones area.”
The Cross and Bones area is a place where everything has died. Businesses, factories, and most of the homeless that have pitched up their tents there over the last twenty years.
Jermaine stands and puts his fingers to his mouth, letting out an ear-piercing whistle. The music is shut off and the crew is on alert.
“We’re out. Tool up. We’re going to Cross and Bones,” he hollers.
Warren and I head out with Darius informing us that they are in an abandoned building that used to be a bread factory back in the day.
The Dog’s Blood Crew pile into their cars and Warren and I jump on our bikes. I text Luca before turning my engine on.
The adrenaline returns and surges through me. We’ve been waiting for this moment and it’s finally here. The Hades fucks have two choices. They can either leave our city before we get our hands on them, or they can try and fight and die for it.
No one is around when we pull up. Between Darius’s crew’s car engines and mine and Warren’s bike engines, they would have heard us coming, but no one comes out.
Darius’s car comes to a stop, but he doesn’t climb out. Warren and I stop either side of the car and I take out my gun.
“It’s too quiet,” I murmur.
“They’re either not here, or they’re waiting and watching us,” Darius says.
He gets on the phone and orders someone in the car behind us to shoot up at the windows.
I climb off my bike and walk around the car, coming to a stop by Warren. Shots ring out and glass smashes, broken shards falling to the ground. Still nothing.
Darius gets back on the phone. He orders the car behind to drive around the back and hit them up from the rear. I watch their taillights disappear around the corner.
Movement in the third-floor window catches my eye and my heart thrums. We weren’t wrong, they are here.
Leaning in the passenger side window, I tell Jermaine and Darius, “Shoot at them until Warren and I are inside.”
“You don’t want us to go in with you?” Jermaine asks.
“What you do after we’re in is up to you.”
Warren climbs off his bike as I straighten and on the count of three, we run for the doors under a shower of bullets.
The back of the building is being lit up and two Hog’s are stood either side of a large window. I take one out and Warren takes care of the other.
Once they’re down, we make our way up to the second floor and run into another two Hogs. Our aim is on point and after a quick look in each room, we make our way up to the third floor.
Footsteps run up behind us and we swing round to find Darius, Jermaine and Tariq with their guns out.
“We’re at a disadvantage going up,” Tariq points out.
“Don’t die, then,” I grunt.
Warren and I nod at one another, and we rush the stairs and open fire as soon as our boots hit the top floor.
Between the five of of us, we make fast work clearing the floor. Warren and I check the last room and find two Hogs, who are going to wish they were shot on sight. Tariq and Jermaine rush in and point their guns at them, I put myself in front of them.
“No, no. These two have some talking to do before you decorate their heads with lead.”
They lower the guns and step back. I kneel before them and smile.
“Don’t look so good now, does it?” I grin. “But I can make it quick if you tell us where the rest of you little cretins are.” The one to my right spits, it landing an inch from me. “That’s disgusting and you’re lucky it didn’t hit me.”
Standing, I look to Warren then around at the dead bodies. “We should take them to the warehouse behind the club. We don’t want to be here if the cops show.”
The Dog’s Blood crew haul them out to the cars and shove them into their trunks and within twenty minutes, they are being dragged into the warehouse that will one day soon belong to the club.
Forcing them onto their knees, I stand before one and Warren stands before the other.
“Tell us where you fuckers are hiding out,” I begin.
“Fuck you!” one snaps.
“Fuck me? Fuck you.”
As soon as I land the first punch, Warren follows suit and together we kick the shit out of the pair. Mine slumps to the ground, I lean over him and rip his cut off of him. Taking out my knife, I slice at it like it’s a Shish kebab.
For over an hour they take a beating so hard, even Warren and I are running out of steam. To give my fists a break, I reach for my knife when the asshole says, “An abandoned building, the one painted red, on Cross Street!”
Fucking finally.
I wipe the blood from my hands on my jeans and dig out my phone, and call Luca.
“Got an address.”
“About fuckin’ time.”
“What do you want us to do with these two?”
“Shoot them and get rid of the bodies. Get back here, bring Darius and his crew.”
I hang up and put my phone away. “Luca wants us over at the club. Can you get a couple of your boys to dispose of the bodies?”
Without hesitation, I take out my gun and put a bullet into each of their heads.
“I was about to ask what bodies, but you’ve cleared that up nicely.”
Over at the club, Luca is waiting for us with the rest of the brothers. Four tables are covered in guns, and I head straight for the automatic rifle.
“It’s not a toy, brother,” Angel grunts.
“Well aware,” I retort.
Luca calls for everyone’s attention and the bar falls quiet.
“The only plan tonight is to pull up and shoot. Anyone wearing a Hogs cut is dead on sight. I want them humiliated and annihilated. Anyone got any questions? No? Good. Get ready to go. If they’ve heard about the shooting, they might be getting ready to move or retaliate.”
Since I’ve picked my weapons of choice, I locate Joey, cousin of the silver hair beauty. Pushing through the crowd, I stop in front of him.
“Hey, man. I’ve been told you’re the one to talk to about your cousin Ruby.”
“What about her?”
“I want to ask her out.”
His laughter annoys me. “Not a fuckin’ chance.”
Some would be deterred but not me. “We’ll see.”