Chapter 27 #2
My nerves spark, my stomach jolting. “Grace?”
When she responds, she’s out of breath, voice shaky. Scared. “I’m… I’m sorry Linc. I’m?—”
More shuffling. More voices.
“Gracie?” I yell.
She screams, then the call goes dead.
My pulse ratchets up, hands shaking, adrenaline rushing through my veins. Not the anger that I’m so used to pressing down. Another sensation entirely. Fear.
I dial her back as I press the gas pedal to the floor. I’m sent straight to voicemail. Jaw clenched tight, I fly down the road towards her.
It’s them.
The Road Raiders have come back to South Bay.
I’m still minutes away. Too far. It’s taking too fucking long.
As I finally approach, I kill my lights and slow. I park a few hundred metres away and then hop the wire fencing at the edge of the farm and race through the field, ignoring the burn in my lungs as the white farmhouse comes into focus.
Ducking, I pull my gun from the back of my pants and slowly edge the fencing, squinting in hopes that I can make out what’s happening through the boarded-up windows.
The lights are on inside. There’s movement.
Bodies. Three, maybe. No, four. Though the cluster of motorcycles parked at the back of the house tell me there’s more.
I tug my mask up and over my mouth and nose.
Squeeze my fingers around the grip of my gun.
Feel for the knife tucked into my boot. This could play out in a million ways.
I could run in through the back door, guns blazing.
But then I risk hurting Grace or catching a bullet.
If I go through the front, I can’t guarantee that old failing porch will hold my weight.
The upper windows, maybe, if I could climb the side of the house without being seen, but then?—
The cold barrel of a gun presses to my temple, and I go still.
“What do we have here?” a man says, his face too damn close to mine.
The distinct clack of metal on metal sounds in my ear. A gun getting ready to blow my fucking brains out. My heart stops. Feet shuffle behind me.
“Nice and easy. Let’s get those hands up, fucker.”
I… know that voice. “Tex?”
“Uh. Yeah?”
Shoulders relaxing, I yank down my mask and whirl around. There’s a gun in my face, but rather than look at it, I lock eyes with the man holding it. Shoulder-length dark blond hair, leather cut with the word Sinner embroidered at the front.
“Decker?” He lowers his piece. There’s movement in my periphery, and Preacher slips out from the tall overgrowth.
“You scared the hell out of me,” I say as a rush of air flows from my lungs.
Preacher angles his head, giving me a hard stare. “What are you doing here?”
“Police business is on a need-to-know,” I say with a smile.
“Yeah? You forget what team you’re playing for tonight?” Tex nods, gesturing to my mask. Then his focus drops to my gun. The one that’s definitely not my police issued weapon.
“Axe send you?”
Preacher nods. “Doing some recon. One of our guys spotted these assholes rolling into town last night. Can’t mean anything good.” He gives me a long look, an expression that looks like concern etched into his features. “Anything you need to tell me, Decker?”
I snort. “Like I said. Need-to-know. Could use a distraction, though. If you two are up for a little fun.”
“No way,” Tex grunts. “Our orders are to assess and report back. Axe would flip if we engaged without his say-so.”
Three guns to their… five? Six? Better odds. Maybe I get to Grace on time. Maybe I get her out of there in one piece.
“Since when are you so well behaved?” I ask.
“I don’t like getting my ass beat. And our prez is in a hell of a mood tonight thanks to your brothers in blue. I’m not about to start testing his patience when he’s feeling this… violent.”
Chin lifted, I take a step closer. “You owe me.”
His eyes narrow. I’m calling in my favour. I saved Tex’s life once. About to die, pinned in a corner, seconds from taking a few bullets to the chest kind of saving. I could have left him for dead. Instead, I risked my ass to save his.
He peers at the farmhouse behind me. Then he assesses me—my mask, dark clothes, the gun—and scratches at his jaw.
“It’ll bring a lot of heat on the club if this goes south.
And all flatlands. Someone starts popping shots off and the coppers show up, we’ll have nowhere to run.
Sounds like a one-way ticket to a jail cell, and I’m much too pretty for the slammer. I’ll pass.”
I shake my head. “I don’t need you to drop any bodies. Like I said. A distraction. I’ll be in and out. And shit gets heated? You bail. Leave me. Nothing to blow back on the Sinners. I’ll take all the heat. You owe me ,” I repeat.
He steps closer, pointing his finger in my face. “I do this, we’re even. Got it? And not a fucking word to Axe. You either,” he says, turning to Preach.
Preacher sighs. “This is a bad idea.”
I shrug. “So?”
Silently, Preacher steps towards the wire fencing, assessing the property in front of us—the overgrown grass just beyond the fence leading into the field, the mostly collapsed shed to our left, the body of a rust-eaten pickup behind it.
The mound of junk piled on top. Wooden boards, scrap metal, beer bottles, gas cans, the low hum of what I assume is a generator in that shed.
“What are you thinking?” I ask.
“That you’re hiding something.” He skirts around me and leans over the fence. He picks up one of the gas cans, opens it, and sniffs. Then he grins. “Got your distraction. Go through the front. You’ll know when it’s time. Once you’re in, you’re on your own, you got it?”
With a nod, I turn and head towards the house. I only make it a step before Tex grabs me.
“Why you really here, Decker? What’s your skin in this?”
I glance up at the house and clench my fists.
That familiar anger burns hot in my chest. I let it simmer, bubble up rather than calm it like I usually do.
They’ll get it all. All the anger, the rage, that blood-boiling fury.
Everything fueling me, fueling this need.
The need to kill someone. And I will. If they hurt her, I will fucking kill them. All of them.
“They took something that belongs to me,” I say, a fresh swell of anger flooding my veins. “And I’m gonna get her back.”