Chapter One
Jep snorted. “Well, if your brothers are in on everything with Ricco then he would demand loyalty,” Jep told Crank.
“And maybe they saw him as better than what they knew growing up. Maybe they even knew your dad’s goose was cooked and wouldn’t likely live through this.
I think Ricco knew the outcome and your brothers knew the moment everyone heard you refuse to give up the money.
I was watching them. They were backing away and out of the line of fire as soon as the words left your mouth. ”
Crank snorted. “Yeah, I wonder if Dad knew before Ricco had him shot? And my brothers knew the old man, same as me. They knew he slept around and after mom died, he could thumb his nose at anything and everything. But he’d been doing that all my life.
That was why I left the very first minute I could. ”
Jep was only half listening instead he was staring at his laptop. He’d been watching something his cameras had caught on the road. A lone rider heading up the mountain. He motioned to Titus.
The Prez came over and looked down at the screen then he commented, “Odd. Well, wait and see if they come to our gate. One rider can’t do too much damage.” He turned and went back over to his table.
Jep watched the rider for ten minutes then whoever it was came up their drive. “Hmmm, boss, the rider is headed toward the front gate.”
Titus walked over to him again and he too stared at the screen.
They both saw the rider stop, kick the stand down and reach up to take their helmet off.
“What the hell?” Titus exclaimed.
Then he was surprised when the rider’s dark hair fell down to her back.
She then grabbed a rifle from a strapped sling over her shoulder.
“What? She's gonna take us all on?” Boomer asked from beside Titus as he snorted.
She kept staring at something in the distance from where she sat on her ride.
Jep stared at her on the screen and muttered under his breath, “Magnificent.”
Titus and Boomer looked over at him and chuckled.
“Open the gate, Jep,” Titus ordered. “This looks interesting.”
“I’ll say,” Ridge agreed.
The front door was thrown open and everyone began piling out of the clubhouse. They all stopped and stared as the woman now made her way to the fallen.
Her rifle remained pointed at the ground in perhaps a show of her not attacking them. Suddenly, she stopped and glared down at the body of Todd Lawler.
Then she did something utterly shocking...She kicked Todd Lawler’s dead body. “You fucker,” she growled.
Titus, Crank and Ridge slowly stepped back. The woman might be deranged, so they didn’t want to take any chances.
Titus heard the clicks behind him as his men drew their weapons and held them at the ready. They didn’t like shooting women but they were visible for their own protection.
The woman just stood there staring down at Lawler’s body. “Damn, that prick did what I wanted to do,” she said softly.
“Excuse me?” Titus called out.
She snapped her head up and said, “I wanted to be the one to end this man’s life. I had that right.” She kept her rifle pointed down and made no move to give them any signal she meant to shoot anyone. “Ricco Sanchas took my kill and I won’t forgive him for that.”
Titus reached out and punched in the code he needed to open the gate. When the gate opened he went through it alone to face the woman. “What the hell do you mean? He took your kill?”
The woman waved the business end of her rifle toward Todd. She seemed careful not to raise it so as to not escalate the situation. “I wanted to be the one to end him and that was taken from me.”
“Are you another of his kids?” Titus asked as he narrowed his eyes.
The woman scoffed in disgust. “Hell no. Thank God, I’m not one of his supposed children. But because of him I lost both my parents and I will never forgive him for it.”
“What’s your name, honey?” he asked carefully.
“Arielle, what’s yours, hotshot?” The woman grinned at him.
“They call me Titus. This is my club.”
“Congrats to you and yours.” Arielle nodded. “You know this is only the first hit, right?” she stated rather than asked.
Titus nodded. “Yeah and they failed gloriously.”
Arielle looked up at him sadly. “Not too gloriously. Sanchas left, right?”
Titus nodded.
“Well, he’s gonna regroup and come back with even a bigger force,” she informed him. “He’s very unforgiving that way.”
“Why would he come back here?” Titus frowned. “We got nothing here for him.”
Arielle shook her head. “Todd promised him money and Sanchas won’t go away empty handed. He never has and never will.”
“But that money was never Todd’s to promise to someone else.”
She shrugged. “That’s Todd’s fault, isn’t it?
And Todd is dead for not keeping his dick in his pants, right?
A habit he made all too public, like the dumbshit he always was.
” She looked at him and said, “That won’t stop Sanchas from coming back, so if you think this battle is over, you couldn’t be more wrong. ”
Titus shook his head. “Then Sanchas is going to lose a hell of a lot of men. This is our home and we’re not giving up or giving in. We will fight to the death to protect our own.”
Arielle nodded. “And you have every right to protect your own but Sanchas isn’t going to care, he’ll keep coming after your club.
..period. So whatever you do, make it stick and make sure you don’t fail in your mission.
Sanchas won’t acknowledge defeat until it's too late, not until he sees his own army dead on the ground. So make it count. One of you isn’t going to survive. ” Then she turned to walk away.
Jep came running out of the clubhouse and yelled, “Incoming and it’s an army. Sanchas and he doesn't look happy.”
Titus didn’t say anything, he just grabbed Arielle’s arm and hustled her inside the gate then he hit the close button.
They all hurried back inside the clubhouse.
When Titus and Arielle got there, Titus grabbed the heavy metal protection they used to lock the massive door and pushed it into place.
Ursula, Mollie and Reno were sitting at a table. Reno and Mollie were reloading their rifles.
Titus looked at Jep and asked, “How much time we got?”
“Ten minutes, those dumb bastards are racing up the mountain at high speed,” Jep stated.
“But not all of them are gonna make it anyways. They’re traveling way too fast for those curves.
They have no idea how steep some parts are.
” He turned his head to watch them come to the top of the mountain.
“And there it is, one car isn’t gonna make that turn. ”
Titus came over and watched as one car flew off the turn and went over the cliff. Shaking his head, he looked up at his men. “Get to the roof and protect this place. This is our home and if they want a war, they got one.”
Five men rushed to the roof, only managing to grab their rifles on their way up. The rest found their places and then they all waited.
Titus looked over at the women.
Ursula raised her hand up at him. “Don’t say it. I’ll head back to the safe room. I don’t like the pit, so skip it.” She kissed Reno on the cheek and left.
Ridge looked over at Mollie.
Shaking her head, she raised her rifle. This action stated her intentions. Next to her Reno did the same.
Arielle looked curious as she walked over to their table and introduced herself. They all talked about rifles of all things.
Ridge and Titus simply shook their heads.
Ten minutes later, the first vehicle came streaking up the drive.
It screeched to a stop just kissing the edge of the gate, then the windows rolled down and guns were blasting the clubhouse.
Each car that stopped on the other side of the gate repeated the shooting spree.
Titus and his men waited for the right moment to strike back.
After several moments, the shooting stopped and Ricco stepped out of his vehicle. “Why won’t you pussies fight back?” he shouted.
Titus stepped to the front door to open the top half and shouted back, “We’re waiting for you to take a breath, meanwhile we got all this shit on film and we’ll use it when the cops get here to clean up the bodies we’re about to leave.
” Then he slammed the door shut as his own men began firing back.
Ricco dove for the open truck door and nobody else moved in time as bullets tore into their vehicles. Screams were heard and after a long few minutes, the bullets stopped.
Then in the eerie silence a car door creaked open and a body fell out. Then one of the cars exploded and as it started to burn they heard men screaming. More men spilled from the vehicles and they all had weapons in their hands as they stumbled toward the woods behind and on either side of them.
It now looked like they had lost almost half of the men when the bullets tore into their vehicles. As the car fire raged, no one moved outside.
Jep grunted and began counting heads. He looked up and said, “Twenty of them survived and are now in the woods. But they are showing signs of being wounded.”
Titus looked over at him and said, “See if you can take pictures of their faces so we know who survived and who didn’t. We need to check for Sanchas.”
Jep nodded and began snapping pictures of their faces and he found the answer immediately, “Yeah, Sanchas survived.”
Crank moved over to stand behind him and just shook his head. “I didn’t see my brothers with him. And Sanchas looks like he’s moving on adrenaline and rage. You can see it on his face. That man is really pissed.”
Arielle moved to look at the screens and she shook her head. “He’s regrouping. He’s waiting for something.”
Jep snapped his head over to stare at her. “Waiting for what?”
She studied at the other screens and after a moment she pointed at one of the screens. “For them.”
Everyone gazed at the screen she pointed at. It seemed to be the camera at the base of the mountain. There, they all could see another group of Ricco’s men, starting up the long mountain road.
Pushing his chair away from the table, Jep griped, “I need to get this wiring done. Damn, I never thought we’d have a third wave.”
Titus turned his head to look at his father then he turned back to Arielle. “A third wave? How did you know all this?”
Arielle looked up at him. “I figured it might happen. Ricco Sanchas will never admit defeat and he treats his men like a commodity. He doesn’t care if they live or die and I have a feeling they know that too.
But they also know if they don’t fight, he will shoot them himself.
” She shrugged. “He’s done it before and his men don’t want to end up dead. ”
“How do you know this stuff, young lady?” Bouncer asked her.
Arielle scoffed. “Because Sanchas is well known for what he does and why. He rules hard and he never takes the blame for anything. No one dares to stand up to him either, he’s made that a rule he will not walk away from. They call him El Jeffe... The Boss for a reason.”
Boomer shook his head and said, “That doesn’t answer the question, girl. Why do you seem to know so much about the man? That’s what we need to know.”
Arielle shrugged. “I watch and I learn to read people. It's just something I’ve always done. We used to live near Sanchas and I learned the hard way to watch him without saying anything. I hid when he was around, just hide, watch and keep my mouth shut. My mom forgot about keeping her mouth shut. So when she tried to help someone Sanchas was trying to get to join him, my mom got in his way and he shot her, right there in the street. No one dared to try and help her, they just stood there and watched her die. Sanchas stood there too. Then when she died he just walked away like she meant nothing to him. He just put his gun back in his jacket and turned away. The man he went after first just sat there frozen until the shadows covered my mom like a blanket of shadows. He just got up, went back to his own truck and drove away, but his eyes looked haunted as he drove away. He left town that night and it was three days later when Sanchas noticed. So he sent his men out after him but they never found him. Sanchas wasn’t any fun for a long time after they returned without him. ”
“What did your dad do about it?” Bouncer finally asked.
Arielle shrugged. “There was nothing he could do, no one could do anything about stopping Sanchas. No one ever testified against him either. They all claimed not to see what really happened, but I knew they were lying. I saw him there, I saw what happened but I was just a kid, no one believed me when I tried to tell them. My dad told me not to tell the truth or Sanchas would kill me and he couldn’t bear to lose me too.
So I kept my mouth shut, we just buried her and moved on. ”
“Sweet Jesus,” Titus swore under his breath.