Chapter 27
Jasper
Mica and Slate step in, each gripping an arm. They drag him out, towards our interrogation room in the basement. We’ll get the answers we need, and keep him locked up until we figure out what the hell to do with him. I follow them, thinking of the questions I want to ask him.
The moment my brothers throw Sam into a chair in our interrogation room, I’m on him, leaning down with my best intimidating stare.
“I want details,” I say, keeping my voice cool and deadly. “Drop meet-up locations. Who is your contact? What do they know about this place that we don’t?”
Lowering his eyes, he responds desperately, “I don’t know anything. Information only flows one way, from me to them.”
I grab a fistful of his hair and jerk his head back to look him in the eye.
“Bullshit. Are you a fully patched member of the Hyenas? Even their prospects aren’t ignorant.
They hang around and hear shit. Either way, you’re gonna come off some information if you want to make it outta this clubhouse alive. ”
The prospect coughs, one hand clutching his side where Slate likely cracked a rib. “Okay, okay. Jesus, I’ll talk.”
I let his head go and stand over him with my arms crossed, praying he makes good on his promise to talk.
Grasping the arms of the chair, words tumble out of his mouth in a rush.
“They know about the side fence. They said it looked old and particularly vulnerable. They plan to hit there first. They’ve decided to hit hard and fast, using the element of surprise.
I sent photos of the fence last week, and they have drone footage. ”
There’s a knock at the door. I stomp over and open it, everyone knows not to bother us when we’re interrogating someone.
It’s Striker, and he’s looking worried. “You need to see this, brother.”
He holds out the burner phone and scrolls through the gallery with his thumb. There are numerous photos of Tessa.
I spin around and glare at the prospect, “You wanna tell me why you’ve got pictures of my old lady?”
“I was only doing what they asked me,” he stutters.
“You better start talkin’ or you’re a fuckin’ dead man.”
“I’m already dead.”
“Why the hell did you betray us to join the fuckin’ Hyenas?”
He replies weakly, “I was prospecting for them, and this was my first job. I wanted to prove myself and be loyal. It’s nothing against your club.”
“Yeah, but you had to know what getting caught would mean for you.”
He gives me a scant nod.
“Your betrayal is gonna cost lives on both sides when they tear into that fence. You know that, right?”
He states weakly, “I honestly didn’t think it would go that far.”
I lean closer, looking him in the eye again. I don’t raise my voice, because I don’t need to at this point. Sam might be naive, but he knows that I mean business. “They always go this far. Did you think the Hyenas had our town name on the bottom rocker as some kind of sick joke?”
He drops his gaze. “I thought there was room for two clubs in this town.”
“None of that matters now. I read your text messages. You were very thorough at betraying my club.”
“I know you don’t believe me, but I wish I’d never gotten involved with the Hyenas.”
Not falling for his line of bullshit, I ask my final question—the one I didn’t find in his phone. “Tell me who’s pumping money into the Hyenas’ coffers. Is it Banditos Twelve?”
His head lifts up and he states quietly, “If I tell you, they’ll kill me.”
I grab him by the throat and bark, “You don’t, I’ll fuckin’ kill you myself.”
“They were getting money from them, but they didn’t get rid of your club fast enough. Marquez some weird rich guy was giving them money. I was there when they first met months ago. He said you need a biker to catch one.”
Suddenly, it all makes sense. “It was fuckin’ Whitmore, right?”
Sam swallows thickly. “I didn’t catch his name. He drove a white Lexus, stank like he bathed in cologne, and looked like he had just stepped out of a damn magazine.”
“Yeah, that’s him alright. Is that why you sent so many fucking pictures of my old lady?”
Sam’s lips press into a firm line. He nods, looking every bit as terrified as he should in this situation.
“You know that involving my old lady means I’m not gonna let this go unpunished, right?”
“Yeah, I know,” he whispers, glancing to the side. Then he closes his eyes and waits for what’s coming to him.
***
I stalk back out to the bar area, sit down at the table to finish cleaning my gun.
In my absence, the mood has shifted. No one is smiling or joking, and the mood is somber.
Betrayal has a tendency to do that. I need to tell Tessa about those photos.
We thought Whitmore had backed off, but if he’s in league with the Hyenas then we don’t know what he’s capable of.
No sooner do I snap the last piece of my weapon back into place than the room bursts into motion with a resounding thud. Boots pound on the wooden floor, people scramble back, and gear goes tumbling off shelves.
“They’re coming!” Mica shouts out.
Orders fly from my mouth without hesitation.
I don’t even have to think about it. We’re under attack, and I just jump into action.
“Slate, reinforce the windows. Onyx, rig the fallback paths. And Mica, get up to the rooftop and run point with the snipers. Everyone else, you have your orders already. Get to it.”
Tessa watches me from across the room. She doesn’t panic, but her eyes don’t leave mine.
I make my way over, cutting through the chaos taking place around me. When I reach her, I take her hand and bring it to my mouth for a quick kiss. This woman has become my whole world—a tether I didn’t know I needed until it was there.
“Remember the plan?” I ask gently. I don’t want to panic her, but I need her to get her sweet ass moving for the safe room.
Her eyes dart over to the stairs leading down to the basement, the safe room. Queenie’s already there, waving her over with urgency. Tessa snaps out of whatever trance she was in. “Get all the women to the safe room, right?”
“Yes ma’am,” I say proudly. “Now’s the time. The clubhouse is under attack and it’s very likely the Hyenas.”
I place my hands firmly on her shoulders. She’s looking at me with a mixture of worry and fear. I lean in, press my forehead quickly to hers. One last moment at her side and one last breath together.
“You get to the safe room,” I say. “Stay there until I come for you. Don’t come looking for me. You protect our baby. You hear me?”
One hand moves to her belly, and she gives me a stiff nod. She darts away, grabbing a club girl crouching frozen behind a chair and pulling her along as she heads for the basement.
I surge into the fray and dive out the front door just in time to see a huge truck with a battering ram on the front come crashing through the side fence. I curse the asshole who betrayed us under my breath, as I move forward.
A second later, gunfire erupts. When a bullet zips past my head, nicking my ear I realize they’re playing for keeps with headshots.
The clubhouse shakes behind me. And before we can get turned around, we’re knee deep in Hyenas.
They’re all riding around on their trashed-out bikes, yelling and shooting the place up.
The battle outside gets heated, and I scream for the brothers to fall back to the clubhouse.
We need to concentrate on protecting what’s important.
I dive into the small storage room tucked behind the bar.
It’s not much to look at—more of a closet than a room—but it holds more firepower than most gun shops.
We keep our overflow ammo cases locked in a cabinet.
My fingers fly over the combination lock, and once the door opens, I grab a case of ammo.
Heading back to the bar I quickly open some whiskey bottles, dump bullets inside, and then stuff a torn piece of a bar towel in the opening. I want to cause the maximum amount of damage I can, in the shortest amount of time. What I’m doing might be crude, but it’s effective.
Onyx runs into the room and grabs a case of ammo just as someone shoots out the window. I light the rag on the end and throw it as hard as I can out the window. I’m actually pretty damn happy when I hear someone immediately begin screaming.
Onyx stops to load his rifle and grins at me. “We’re goin’ old school today, brother?”
I toss another lit Molotov cocktail out the window and jerk my chin at him. “I don’t like those assholes in our parking lot. You got a problem with that?”
“Hell no. The stupid fuckers already trashed our bikes.”
I throw another one outside. “That fucking pisses me off. It’s the second one in the last few months for me.”
Onyx pops his head up to look out the window, which is high up. Someone takes a potshot at him, so he drops back on the floor. “You’re doing a fucking great job. Three Hyenas are running around on fire right now.”
I toss another one out the window. “Fuckin’ serves the bastards right.”
Slate dives into the room to grab ammo. “You’re fuckin’ killing it today, Jasper. Those assholes are practically panicking their asses off.”
I toss one more for good measure. “Yeah, that’s all well and good, but they ain’t exactly tearing out of here like a bat outta hell either, are they?”
Slate looks disgusted. “They probably would be, but Marquez is dropping every one of them that tries to abandon the fight.”
“Sick twisted fuck,” I grumble under my breath. “I’m gonna take that fucker out or die trying.”
I pick up my rifle, then slide two spare mags into the front pockets of my cut. Both my guns and my rifle have been cleaned, prepped, and double-checked. I don’t leave anything to chance when it comes to protecting my family and my club.
As I rush back out into the bar area with my brothers at my back, I catch a faint vibration underfoot, a slight rumbling. Most people probably wouldn’t notice it, but my brothers and I are trained to notice shit like this.
“What the fuck,” Slate mutters.
“We’ve got more incoming. Apparently, that was just the first wave.”
Onyx agrees, “It feels like thirty, maybe more, moving together and getting closer.”
“This day just keeps getting fuckin’ better and better,” Slate grumbles, taking up position near a side window.
Outside the bar, the world has gone still. There are no more men screaming in pain or gunfire.
“They’re regrouping,” I say. “Now would be an excellent time to try and pick a few more of them off.”
We all break out our windows and pick off anyone who isn’t fully behind cover. That doesn’t last long.
My brothers and I are on the move again.
Time to assess the damage outside before we get hit with the second round of those vicious fuckers.
I reach the front steps and get a low nod from Onyx.
He’s already got his shotgun slung over one shoulder and somehow got his hands on a scoped AR.
His shoulders are set wide, his eyes sharp, mouth a hard line.
Slate’s pacing a few feet behind him, running a cloth over the handle of his axe before sliding it into the loop on his back.
Mica jumps down from the roof and walks out to stand at the edge of the gravel lot.
Four brothers, shoulder-to-shoulder, just like always.
It’s getting dark now. Low visibility always complicates a battle.
I take a slow breath and mentally walk the perimeter.
Jinx is at the northwest lookout tower. There are two prospects walking along the back fence.
The back parking lot is wired to trigger the propane charges if they come at us from behind.
We’re already breached from the side. The last thing we need is a war on two fronts.
We don’t have the manpower for that. These fuckers have already done a lot of damage.
It sickens me to think of what else they have in store for us.
The fallback plan’s already been relayed. If the front is overrun, we move to the second floor, cut power, and force them into the trap corridor near the pool table. The basement is sealed. The safe room’s double-locked. Tessa and the women are already below.
My chest tightens, but I push the feeling down.
Now is not the right time to give in to my emotions.
This place is more than our clubhouse. It’s our home, our history, our scars, and our legacy.
The men beside me helped build it. The ones behind me depend on it.
And underneath all that concrete, the future I never thought I’d have is curled up in the dark, waiting for me to hold the line.
We’re gonna be outnumbered but that doesn’t matter one little bit to me. This is our home. And no one’s going to take that from us.