Chapter 26 Grudge
GRUDGE
Wheels on gravel is the very last sound I want to hear while Lucy is back in my arms…hopefully, for good…after fucking in the back of my truck, like we’re kids out necking all over again.
“They’ll pay us no attention,” I reassure Lucy as she tries to wriggle off me and crane her neck so she can see who it is.
“It’s a truck,” she says. “They’ve parked to block the entrance to the trail. Looks like there are men getting out and—Oh, God!” She pulls off my cock, and I shudder all over again. “They’re bikers. And not Outlaws. They’re peering into my truck.”
I grab Lucy’s hips and hastily help her over me. My jeans and boxer briefs fight me, as I wriggle them up off my hips and launch myself forward to the glove box of the truck, pulling out the knife I keep in there, before grabbing my gun off the seat.
The last thing I need is to be caught out with Lucy in the crossfire. Not when we just found our path back to each other.
“Pull your jeans on. Fast,” I say.
“Shit. They’re walking this way. Will they hurt us?” she asks, and I wish I had tons of time to reassure her we’re fine. But I don’t, and we’re not.
I pull out my phone and call Wraith.
“Grudge. What’s up?”
“I’m on the trail to the river by Turner Creek. In the truck with Lucy.” I glance out of the truck window. “Four Rebels headed toward me. Gulch and some others.”
“Ten minutes. We’re on our way.”
I hang up without saying thanks. “Here, take this.” I unsheathe the knife. “Anyone comes near you, you stab them through the heart without a minute’s reservation.”
Her eyes go wide. “I don’t want to. But Gulch…he was one of the two who approached me that night outside the restaurant, and again the day you and your mom saved me. I think they want me to take over from whatever my father was doing for them.”
I cup her cheeks. “Then, if it’s you or them, you pick you every single time.”
“Is help coming?” she asks.
I nod. “Wraith is on his way with the club.” I don’t tell her he said it would be ten minutes. “This might be little more than coincidence and they’re just here for some smack talk.”
When I reach for the handle, Lucy throws herself at me, holding the knife blade away from the two of us. “Wait. You can’t go out there.”
“Better than them coming in here. Don’t worry, I’m not going to start anything.”
“Be safe.”
“Lock the doors,” I say.
Lucy’s curls bob as she violently shakes her head. “No. I want you to be able to get back in quickly if you have to.”
I toss her the keys. “Lock the fucking doors, Luce.”
When I step outside, I raise an eyebrow at her, and then, hear the locks pop. Then, she places her hand to the window and, just for a moment, I place my palm over hers with the frigid glass between us.
It’s cold without my jacket. Should have put it on, except it would have limited my range of motion, and I have a feeling I might need it.
“Well, lookie here, kids,” Gulch says. “It’s the new president of the Outlaws.”
“So, you know me, then,” I say cockily. “I’m glad. How’s your ass doing after I landed you on it?”
Gulch cracks his knuckles, and I know this isn’t going to be a fun visit. His head is shaved, likely more a function of balding than a style choice and must be freezing.
“Butcher got scared of the fight?” he asks, and some of the others chuckle. A guy called Skater is wearing the Enforcer patch, and he’s got that cocky walk of someone newly promoted.
It chaps my ass that I can’t congratulate him on his promotion, since it will prove what the Rebels likely only suspect. That we killed their last enforcer when he tried to get Greer and Ember.
“So, let’s get this over with,” I say, “because this whole posturing bullshit, as you try to make fun of my club while your cronies stand ten feet back pathetically laughing at your jokes, is childish as fuck. Where’s Granger?”
Skater’s brows furrow. “The fuck you’re talking about?”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about. Hooper’s in prison. So, what’s Granger, your ex-president, doing sniffing around and trying to buy land out by Idaho Springs?”
Gulch looks around me to the truck, ignoring my question. “You got a special someone in that truck?”
My heart pounds in my chest at the mention of Lucy. “Special someone? Who the fuck says that?”
He tips his head in the direction of the truck, and Skater and a beer-bellied guy with a long, greasy gray beard called Pink start toward Lucy.
I try to play it down. “It’s just a club girl and a bit of fun.”
Gulch peers over my shoulder. “Then, you’ve got no skin in the game if we take her and share her, then.”
My heart thuds heavily in my chest. “She’s still one of mine. Belongs to my club. Not gonna let you do that to her.”
Gulch tips his chin to Skater. “Get her.”
“You really don’t want to do that,” I say, turning to face Skater.
The man is about six inches shorter than me, but stocky. He grins. “You gonna stop me, big guy?” he asks. “Because my gut tells me that’s De Bose’s daughter. And we want a word with her.”
But I’m in his space, my fist to his jaw, so quickly that the last word comes out on a grunt.
I know I have to stay alive for about five more minutes.
And I can’t take them on in a group fight, but if I can take out those most likely to hurt me first, and fast, I stand a chance.
I grab the collar of Skater’s cut and punch him so hard in the face, his lip splits, as does the soft skin beneath his eye.
His feet pedal beneath him as he tries to stay upright.
I don’t dodge his blow, and it hits me hard in the mouth, but I barely feel it, so focused on what I need to do next to keep me and Lucy alive.
The next punch sends him down. Maybe he kicks me, perhaps his hands go for my neck. But I feel none of them.
The next four punches are all mine. Straight for the same place on his face.
His nose breaks beneath my knuckles. A tooth flies.
By the time I raise my fist for the fifth, Skater is down for the count and Pink jumps onto my back and attempts to put his hands around my throat.
I stand to my full height, Pink’s boots scuffing the air, and take ten steps back to slam him against the tailgate of the truck.
“Fuck,” he curses when flesh and metal collide.
“Zach.” Lucy’s scream cracks through the air like a whip, and I hate she has to see this.
Worse, if I don’t keep this under control, she might witness my death. Pink’s hands clamp around my throat in an unbreakable grip. It becomes harder to breathe as his chokehold tightens.
I throw my head back and head butt him, using the momentary distraction to get my hands beneath his and pry his fingers loose. Pink crumples to the dirt, and I spin around, chest heaving.
Lucy’s hands are pressed to the glass inside the truck, her eyes wide, the knife clutched tightly in her palm.
Skater hasn’t moved, and Pink rolls around on the ground before I lift my steel-toed boot and nail him in the fucking ribs. By the second cough, there’s blood in it.
But the click of a safety being taken off a weapon has me turning around. Both Gulch and the fourth biker, who doesn’t have a name patch on his cut, have their guns pointed straight at me.
“Guess Butcher didn’t make the wrong choice putting you in charge, did he?” Gulch says. “Get the girl.”
The unnamed biker keeps his gun trained on me as he walks wide of my reach to the truck. I catch a glimpse of his back, and there is no rocker on there either. Maybe it’s a prospect who doesn’t have his patches, yet.
My mind races through options. There are two guns and only one me. And while my weapon is tucked back in my holster, I know I’m dead if I reach for it.
I step closer to the unnamed biker, blood trickling down my temple, fists ready.
“Leave her the fuck alone,” I shout. “She has absolutely nothing to do with any of this.”
“Easy, Grudge,” Gulch says, his gun still trained on me. “This is over for you today. The only question is how fast. But I want to get a look at the girl who’s gonna watch you die. Hope that dripping dick you tucked away in your denim was worth it.”
My heart stops.
There is no way in hell I can leave Lucy here with these four men. They killed Wraith’s wife and his little girl. I don’t want to think about what they might do to her to coerce her into doing what they want.
I move slightly, turning to face the truck. If I have to die, so be it. But I’m going to kill the unnamed biker if he mishandles her in any way.
Unnamed grabs the handle of the door, and Lucy squeals, crawling back to the other door.
I take a step toward her, and Gulch fires a bullet into the ground inches from my feet. A plume of snow and dirt is thrown into the air next to me.
The idea of death is nothing compared to Lucy’s fate, and blood pulses so viciously in my temples that my vision blurs.
“Stay back, Luce,” I yell, racking my brain with how the hell I’m supposed to get the two of us out of this.
Unnamed raises his gun and shatters the window with it. As he does, Pink shakes his head and climbs to his knees. The fucker might be disoriented, but his first lucid thought is to reach for his weapon and hold it outstretched toward me.
Time is slipping through the hourglass so fucking quickly that I’m unable to think through how this ends, beyond the two of us dying together, and that’s my only thought. To get to her. To hold her.
“No,” Lucy screams as he reaches in to unlock the door from the inside. And with a bravery I wasn’t expecting, she leans forward and stabs the knife through his hand.
The man’s harrowing yell echoes through the bitter air as he whips his hand away, the blade still through it. The distraction gives me enough time to dash around the back of the vehicle while everyone is looking in the man’s direction.
“Open the door,” I yell to Lucy.
She jumps into action, unlocking the door and pushing it open, even as I grab for the handle. Once she’s out of the truck and in my arms, I feel inordinately better. Now I know that whatever happens, she’s with me.