#3 Chapter 62
Johnny’s heavy weight slumps over my shoulder as I carry him in a fireman’s lift. The floodlights of the compound bathe us in light. I let his body tumble from my arms to hit the ground hard, and he lets out a painful wheeze, rolling on his back. His gasps fill the night sky as the light washes over his wounds. I had to knock him around a few times to make him look fucked up. I won’t say that a part of me didn’t enjoy it a little.
His hands are bound behind his back with a zip tie, carefully filed down so that a bit of pressure will release him.
God, I hope this works.
A man appears on the battlements of the fortress. Someone I don’t recognize.
“You brought him.” His smooth voice holds an inflection of surprise.
“Where is Sal?”
I’m aware of the automatic guns trained on my chest right now.
“He’s inside with your wife.”
I can’t wait until I can wipe that smile from your face.
I can’t fight the tremble in my voice. “I want to see her.”
A frown tightens his face. “She should have never been given to you. You didn’t deserve her.”
I bristle as the door rolls open only wide enough to admit a stream of bikers outside. They surround me, ignoring the truck I arrived in. Two of them pick up Johnny’s body and drag him across the dirt. A fierce poke to my back prompts me forward.
A small crowd of bikers stands in the courtyard, their postures menacing. They frisk me and take my concealed guns. I feel the loss with a small twinge of anger. Johnny’s sprawled body lies in the dirt and I see the biker who spoke to me slowly descending the staircase from the wall.
“Where the fuck is the president?”
“My name is Reg. I’m president now.”
Fuckhead.
The cocky asshole stops a foot in front of me and then recognition slowly worms into my mind. He was the VP-a guy I barely knew.
“Where’s Jett?”
He points to a distance about fifty meters away, to a huddled mass curled on the ground. Blood stains his leather cut. It looks like there’s a hole blown right in the middle of it. Jesus.
“He deserved to die the moment he handed over one of our own like a common whore.”
My insides knot. “Where’s my fucking wife?”
An impish smile creeps over his lips. “Why should I give her back to you?”
“Maybe you’ll find out why after I shove my fist up your ass.”
A gun slams into my back, the dull pain cracking over my bones as Reg laughs his ass off.
“Relax. We owe our friend here a great debt for bringing us the Cravotta boss.”
He jerks his head and the doors of the clubhouse open. A slim, blonde woman stumbles out and a huge weight lifts from my shoulders. Beatrice. She’s okay.
Her hair spills over her shoulders like liquid gold and I hear her delicate cries from across the courtyard. My senses flame into overdrive.
“Jack!”
Hearing the desperate cry from her lips feels like a hand reaching between my ribs and yanking. I stride forward to bring her into my arms, to soothe that ache in my chest.
An arm catches me.
“Whoa,” Reg says. “Slow down. We’re not done here.”
I’d like to take the arm stopping me from holding my wife and rip it off.
“What are you talking about?”
He cocks his head. “What’s with the truck?”
Truck? Jesus, I almost forgot.
“It’s a peace offering. That thing is stacked with the arms we were going to sell to the MC.”
Reg eyes me like a shark. “Let me get this straight. I help Sal hide your woman from you, and you give me a gift?”
His boots scrape at the dirt as he prowls around Johnny’s limp body. A motion with his hand makes them prop him up to a sitting position. His head lolls on his shoulder and Reg’s palm slaps him. Johnny’s eyes open dramatically.
“Do you take me for a fucking idiot? Let me guess, it’s loaded with your men or a bomb.”
“Wrong,” I say, fighting to keep my voice even. “Send out your men to check it if you think I’m lying.”
“It has to be rigged to blow.”
A growl rumbles my chest. “If you think I’d risk my wife’s life like that, you’re a fucking moron.”
He yanks the gun from his side and grabs the scruff of my neck, burying the muzzle in my flesh. Beatrice cries out, and then I see Sal behind her, yanking her back.
Take your fucking hands off her.Content rights by NôvelDr//ama.Org.
His breath billows over my cheeks. “You’re pretty fucking brave to call me a moron.”
Don’t fuck this up, Jack.
“There’s nothing in there that’ll hurt anyone in this MC.”
That, at least, was perfectly true. I force myself not to make eye contact with Johnny. Fuck, we have to speed this up.
Reg’s dark eyes scan me, and he smiles. “Go,” he says to the bikers clustered at the gate. “Search it. Check for false walls-everything.”
A few tense minutes pass in the courtyard, and my eyes find Beatrice, who stands just within reach of the man responsible for making my life a living hell. The plan runs through my mind, but I don’t give a fuck about killing bikers.