25. Rex
The open road was a balm to my bruised ego. I’d stood there, waiting for her to reveal what her face so freely showed, but her pretty pink lips remained firmly closed to the truth that she refused to admit to.
I didn’t have to drag her into the clubhouse kicking and screaming, I didn’t have to hold her hostage to keep her with me. She’d walked willingly into the lion’s den, and now she was mine.
I’d make damned sure she stayed where I wanted her.
But first, we had a little problem to deal with.
Sly and Kannon flanked me, the rumble of their engines joining mine in perfect harmony. The address we’d been given was an old gas station at the entrance to town. It had long since run dry, the previous owners boarding up and shipping out when they realized there wasn’t much money in filling vehicles in a little town in Ohio with a population of only 3,000.
We parked up half a mile away, our bikes tucked behind the tree line and walked the rest of the way in silence, our bootsteps muffled by the grassy bank.
My gun was a comfort in its holster tucked beneath my cut. I was hoping we wouldn’t have to resort to using them tonight, I had plans with a certain blonde, and clearing up crime scenes was a time consuming business.
The beat of loud music carried down wind, and I knew we were getting closer. Signaling to my brothers, they clustered around me, already in sync. “Kannon, take the back entrance, make sure they don’t try to run. Remember, we just want to have a friendly little chat.” I checked my clip, the gun loaded and ready. “But, just in case they’re not open to getting the fuck out of our town and staying out this time…”
With Kannon splitting off into the trees, the obsidian darkness engulfed him as he made his way silently around the back of the building. Laughter and the stench of marijuana rent the air, staining the night with its impurity.
There was nothing worse than a substance that could ruin your senses and drive you to actions that had no thought. I sold drugs, I made money off the back of people like this, because there would always be those who had a need for it. Those who craved the unknown and oblivion to ease their situations, but I vowed long ago that my decisions would be my own and never swayed by a panacea.
I’d got rid of an alcoholic father—my first kill—and I wear that badge with pride on my body, a mark hidden within the sharp lines of a tattoo shaped to appear like the barbed wire of our patch. The spokes of the wire had grown over the years, but I never forgot the first one, the one that had freed me from his cruel control and addictions.
In my line of work, I could monitor every single drug that came into my town, I could ensure that not one of us is trapped in that cycle again. My town had been clean, something I—and our prez—was proud of. The streets were clear and managed by my brothers, yet some still wormed their way back into the outskirts like the serpent who was intent on humanity’s fall from grace.
But my brothers wouldn’t be kicked out of our Garden of Eden. Maynard County was my home, most of us were born here, and we’d die here. We would take out the trash, and rebuild our pipeline, selling the drugs elsewhere, and keeping it from our paradise.
The four Sinners lounged on deck chairs around a crudely made fire pit, their eyes glazed and smiles wide, that dropped from their pasty faces when Sly and I walked across the lot. Our hands were hung loosely at our sides, but I kept my trigger finger ready.
Jax jumped up, swaying on unsteady feet. His black leather jacket heralded no insignia, no patches. Like the others, they had just walked into a shop and bought a leather jacket and called themselves a motorcycle club—pathetic. I watched him with disdain and a rotten taste in my mouth. His brown hair was lank and greasy, falling forward over his forehead and almost covering his red–rimmed eyes.
Just as I thought, one of his lackeys ran into the station, making his way out the back, straight into Kannon’s waiting fists.
“We don’t want any trouble, man,” another goon said, this one looking remarkably sober for someone holding a joint. His hands were outstretched in a sign of surrender.
“If you don’t want any trouble, you wouldn’t be in my town.” I glared at the first man who had spoken, fear etched on his face.
“Your town,” Jax spat. “This ain’t been your town for a while and you haven’t even noticed.” He cackled, his manic smile matched the wild look in his eyes.
“I suppose you’ve been working on that behind the scenes, right… because you’re the leader,” I coaxed. Information rolled off his tongue, as he bragged about how long he’d been around and we hadn’t even noticed.
I bet if he wasn’t fucking high, he wouldn’t be shooting his mouth off, but questions I had didn’t even need to be asked as he spat about his accomplishments.
Sly stiffened beside me, watching the other two warily. His hand had drifted to rest lightly on the butt of his gun, as the three men stood in front of us, increasingly agitated. And a man that couldn’t control his mouth, had no business being in control of men.
“Those drugs just got rolled out, and we watched you fuckers running around trying to figure out where they came from…” Jax and his friend—a fat fucker that didn’t even look like he’d be able to ride—crowed their achievement, while we listened to them dig their own graves.
“Aw come on, don’t be so butt hurt,” the fat man whined. “You’ll still get a small cut.” He reached into his front pocket and Sly’s hand clenched around his gun. “Woah there, sonny, I’m just getting this…” He pulled out a little bag of white powder and threw it on the floor between us. “Here, take it. Sell it, make some of your money back.” He collapsed in his chair, a smug smile making his chin wobble.
I scoffed at their arrogance. “Do you think we would be satisfied with your contaminated shit.” I kicked the bag back to them, dirt and dust scattering toward them. “You sold that in my town and people died. You bought our own drugs back here and now you think you can rub it in our faces and placate me with some promise of shit coke,” I growled, my fists clenched as I stalked around the fire pit, the heat from the flames fueled the fire in my gut as I trailed my gaze from one cunt to another. Jax held his ground, but his body practically vibrated with the need to move away from me the closer I got to him. Sly held back, watching my six, his gun ready to take them out should they try anything.
My fingers itched to take out the parasites, an insidious hatred spread and warped into a vengeance for my fallen townsfolk. For Millie, whose innocence had been so cruelly taken from her. “How is it?” I whispered into the void between us. “Explain to me. How did you get the product back here?”
Jax stuttered over his excuses, his eyes darting back and forth, looking for an escape. “It’s just friendly competition, man,” Jax huffed, trying to justify his actions. “Look, I got some cash on me, and I can get you more… I just need… some time, yeah?”
“I don’t want cash, Jax. I want answers.”
“We are just the middle men, ok.” His voice quivered as he spilled what he knew. “I got a meet set up with Felix, the guy gave me the money to buy the shit and we were to bring it back here and sell it. It was Mickey’s idea to cut it up with other stuff to make it last longer, you know, make more green.”
“And then Mickey decided to keep the money for himself,” I added on.
“We didn’t know about that, yeah. That was his choice, nothing to do with us, we paid our dues,” Jax pleaded.
“And when your guy found out about Mickey, what did he do?” My eyes narrowed on the snakes in front of me, the third man—the sober one—stood to the side, watching with avid interest. His eyes fixed on Jax with an eerie light.
“He… he… told me to track down Mickey, get the money back for him, ya know.” I caught sight of Kannon in the gas station’s darkened entrance, the door hanging off its hinges allowed him a sliver of vision and enough cover to not be seen by them. But he could hear perfectly well, his slight nod was more a signal of his readiness, should I need him in the coming moments.
Jax continued his mumblings. He was a sheep, always had been. Never smart enough to do shit on his own, but dumb enough to do shit that other people with a brain wouldn’t be caught getting their hands dirty for. “And where’s Mickey now?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “I dunno, Rex. I didn’t find him.”
Of course he wouldn’t find him, Mickey was six feet under, but at least I knew the slimeball was telling the truth.
Jax twitched as if he was tweaking, bloodshot eyes swinging from me, to Sly and to the other man beside him. He looked in need of a fix. I bent down and picked up the little discarded bag, holding it up between my fingers. I waved it at him.
“Is this what you’re after?” His eyes fixed on the white powder, tracking my hand with possessiveness.
He licked dry lips. “I could use a little pick me up, sure.”
“Tell me. Who gave you the money to buy our stuff in the first place?”
“Mi—” bang!
Jax’s body dropped to the ground, his head a mess of blood and bone. The third man stood there with his gun smoking. The information that Jax was about to tell me dying with him.
“Fuck.”
In a split second, everything changed. Pulling my own gun, I aimed at the shooter. Bullets and mayhem rang through the air as I took aim and fired. My aim ringing true as I hit Jax’s assassin center mass, his eyes flew wide open at the new hole in his chest.
Kannon rushed out, taking aim at the fat man who had crouched behind one of the pumps, trading shots with Sly. I could barely see my brother behind a tree.
The one Sinner left was taken by surprise with the bullet to the back of the head, he literally never saw Kannon coming.
It was over before it had even started, the traitorous scum that had taken out his own man had ignited a war to keep their secrets from being spilled.
“Any idea what Jax was trying to say before he got taken out?” Kannon muttered, rifling through the fallen men’s pockets.
“He said, ‘My’... I don’t know what that means, fuck. And now they’re dead so we’re not getting anything out of them.” I tucked my gun away, kicking at the dead Jax, his lifeless body shifting across the dirt floor.
“At least we don’t have to run them out of town anymore.”
I stared wide eyed at Kannon. “Did you just make a joke?”
His eyes narrowed. “I can joke,” he deadpanned, “and anyway, they’re not all dead, that runner is in back. I knocked him out good and hog tied the prick in case he woke up. He’s all yours.”
A sharp hiss had me twisting swiftly toward Sly, my brother hunched over and groaned in pain. “What the fuck, Sly. Were you hit?” I ran toward him, wrapping my arm around his waist and holding him up, Kannon hot on my heels.
“Where were you hit?” Kannon’s hands ran over his cut, coming away wet with Sly’s blood. “Shit, we have to get him back. I’ll call prez?—”
“I can ride.” Sly groaned, standing up straight, his face pinched from the strain.
“You can’t ride, you stubborn ass.” Kannon pulled his phone out, and I held on tightly to my best friend, trying desperately to find the wound that was soaking his clothes.
“I said I can fucking ride!” He tore himself away, standing tall and facing off with Kannon, a bead of sweat appearing at his temple. “You call prez for clean-up and for someone to collect that heap of shit out back, but I’ll never leave my bike and no motherfucker gets on it but me.”
A flame of defiance lit my brother’s eyes and I knew there was no persuading him otherwise. “Fine, but we ride slow and steady. Tell prez to get the doc prepped, he’ll need to be at the clubhouse to see to Sly,” I ordered. “Fuck, this was a fucking shitshow,” I muttered to the dead men. But they wouldn’t reply ever again, their silence eternal. I just better get some information out of that survivor, or Sly got shot for fucking nothing.