Chapter 1 #2
When I got to the clubhouse, I found Viper sitting at the bar with Lynch and Menace. They were each drinking a cold one as they talked amongst themselves, but quickly grew quiet when I approached. Noting my expression, Viper asked, “You heard anything from Shotgun or Rafe?”
“Not yet.” I took a seat next to him. “Shouldn’t be much longer, though. Danny’s place isn’t far from here.”
Lynch shook his head as he muttered, “Surely, the asshole isn’t stupid enough to be at his place.”
“I pinged his phone’s location a few hours ago, and he was still there,” Menace, the club’s computer whiz, replied. “Well ... his phone was still there. I can’t say the same for him.”
“We’ll know soon enough.” Viper ran his hand over his beard with an unsettling grunt. “I gotta tell ya, I’ve got a bad feeling about all this. I’m thinking this thing goes a lot further than just Danny.”
“Who else could be involved?”
“Danny’s not big enough or smart enough to be leading the chain on this supply,” Viper replied. “Besides, he doesn’t have the balls to try and pull one over on us. He knows what we’d do to him.”
“You’re right about that,” Lynch scoffed. “You thinking it’s his supplier?”
“Don’t know yet, but we’re sure as hell gonna find the fuck out, and when we do, there’s gonna be hell to pay,” Viper growled. “Nobody pulls this kind of shit on the Sinners and gets away with it.”
The room fell silent as we considered what Viper had just told us.
The possibility of going to war with a drug lord wasn’t an easy pill to swallow, especially considering the timing.
Stilettos was booming, and we were under the gun to get the second club up and running.
There wasn’t time to deal with any distractions, which was one of the main reasons we’d decided to be done with Danny in the first place.
We knew something was up with him but made the mistake of trusting him with one last delivery anyway.
That mistake wasn’t sitting well with Viper.
He was a man who was always a step ahead.
He caught problems before they happened, so it only made sense that all the unknowns of the situation were getting to him.
We were all lost in our own thoughts when the back door of the bar flew open and Danny stumbled inside.
“What the fuck?” Viper roared as he shot up and rushed in that direction with the rest of us following closely behind.
Danny’s hands were bound behind his back, and he could barely see through his swollen eyes and the blood running down his face.
Just as he was about to topple over and fall flat on his face, Viper grabbed him by the arm and shoved him into a chair.
“Sit your fucking ass down and don’t move. ”
Danny didn’t speak. He simply lowered his head, cowering like a wounded animal.
That’s when I noticed his blood-soaked shirt.
It didn’t look like the blood had come from him, which left me wondering who the blood belonged to.
I was just about to ask him when Shotgun appeared in the doorway, and like Danny, he was covered in blood.
“Need help getting Rafe out of the truck.”
“What the hell’s going on?” Viper roared.
“That dumb motherfucker shot him!” Shotgun snarled.
Without another word, he turned and raced back towards his truck. Viper turned to Lynch and ordered, “You stay here with him. Menace, you go get Doc.”
Menace nodded, then ran out of the bar while Viper and I went out to help Shotgun with Rafe.
We found Rafe in the front seat, and a surge of adrenaline rushed through me as I noticed he had a bullet wound to the chest and another in his lower abdomen.
His head was leaned back, and his white t-shirt was now completely drenched in blood.
Unbuckling Rafe’s seatbelt, Shotgun whispered, “All right, brother. It’s time to get you inside. ”
Rafe was pale and clearly weak as he raised up and looked at Shotgun. “You can stop with all that worrying shit, brother. I’m gonna be fine.”
“I know you are,” Shotgun argued.
“And another thing”—Rafe winced as Viper helped Shotgun carefully lift him out of the truck—“it ain’t your fault that dickhead shot me. No way you could’ve—”
“Enough of that,” Shotgun interrupted. “You need to save your strength.”
“I told you to stop that shit. I’m not dying. Damn.” Rafe grunted as they started towards the door. “It’s just a flesh wound.”
I rushed over and opened the door for them. Once they were inside, I started to follow them but stopped when Shotgun looked over to me and said, “Gonna need you to go get the girl.”
“The girl? What girl?”
“Says she’s Danny’s sister. She’s still in the back, and be careful,” Shotgun warned. “That one’s a live wire.”
With all the commotion, I hadn’t seen anyone else in the back seat, but I took his word for it and went over to the truck.
I opened the back door to find an extremely pissed off red-headed beauty sitting there with her arms bound behind her back and duct tape covering her mouth.
She was wearing a pair of blue scrubs, and her hair was pulled back, revealing the clearest blue eyes I’d ever seen.
They were beautiful, not just because of the color, but because of the fire hidden behind them—the kind of fire that could burn straight to one’s very soul. Damn.