One That Came Back Read online

  Pez’s face flushed.

  Saks realized his mistake. “Sorry, man. Nothing against you. It’s just that’s how they think.”

  “Yeah, I get that, blanco. Your people had a bunch of business sewn up until the Feds started taking down their organization.”

  Saks laughed. “Oh, they aren’t down. Not by a long shot. Just more underground. I always stayed away from the business,” he said, and sighed before he continued, “but you can’t stay away from family.”

  “Well, if you don’t get in there, they won’t be staying away from us.”

  Saks nodded. “Yeah. You coming in?”

  “No, blanco,” said Pez. “I’ve got other business tonight. We’re just waiting on my crew to show up.”

  “Luke?” Saks turned to his buddy.

  “Can’t, sorry.” He shook his head. “Go, say hello to your family for me.” He revved the engine and then let it idle. “Oh, and Saks? Take a few days off work too.”

  Saks blinked in surprise. “Are you sure? I’ll be fine by Monday.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure. There’s shit going down. Best you stay away. Your family would appreciate that.”

  Saks nodded grimly. “Yeah. They always ruin my fun. Hey, Luke?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks.”

  “Sure.”

  “Thanks to you, too.” Saks held his hand out to Pez, who bumped his fist into his palm.

  “Keep your familia calm.”

  Saks turned and walked into the Red Bull.

  “You know,” said Luke. “I talked to Sal, the presidente of the Rojos here in Westfield.”

  “Yeah, ese, I know. He called me after you spoke to him.”

  That bit of news knocked back Luke. “What? Did you send him to me?”

  “Yeah, I told him to tell you to back off, that we’d handle our problem.”

  “That’s not how it worked out.”

  “It would’ve if it wasn’t for Wizard trying to off you.” Pez spit at the ground. “Wizard’s been holed up in Westfield trying to avoid us. He heard your whole conversation with Sal. You see, Sal was Wizard’s kid and Sal denied up and down that his dad was staying with him.” He lit a cigarette and offered one to Luke.

  Luke took the cigarette and lit it as the sun began to sink behind the trees. “Fuck. And I asked him to turn in his father.”

  Pez shrugged. “I think until then, Sal didn’t know how fucked up his old man had screwed things. Wizard lies real good. That sarmanbiche talked out one side of his mouth with your president. He also had Sal believing that Lil’ Ricki wanted to cut the Rojos out of the business. At first we thought the Spawn were just playing badass. They aren’t no threat. But with the new talent you have in your club, you pendejos can fuck things up good. That’s why I was sent here, ese, to straighten this shit out.”

  A cold chill went up Luke’s spine. Now he understood why Pez declared Luke’s property neutral ground. Pez probably had a good idea what was going to go down tonight. He created uncrossable ground that would damn the Rojos trampling on it now. No one statewide, Rojos or Hombres, would sympathize with what would happen to them this day.

  “You don’t intend to let anyone walk off my property, do you?” Luke said coldly.

  “Only you, pendejo. Lil’ Ricki wants you for himself.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Under Fire

  Emily’s heart beat furiously against her chest as she stared at Aces giving orders to the men and women in the clubhouse. He paid no more attention to her as he peered outside through the window by the door.

  Suddenly the lights cut out, with only the fading evening light spilling through skylights in the ceiling and the windows on either side of the door. The room was in semi darkness.

  “Fuck,” bitched a woman. “There’s no signal on my phone.”

  “Shut your trap,” Aces spat. “Fuckers are using a jammer.”

  “What’re you going to do?” breathed Emily, moving closer to try and see outside a window. She knew she shouldn’t. It could be stupid dangerous, and yet she had to see what was going on outside. What if Luke was out there?

  “You still here, sexy lady? I told you to get to the back of the clubhouse.”

  “I’m not—”

  “Do you think I fucking care, bitch?” he shouted. “Now move!”

  Emily swallowed hard and took a step back. A bullet struck the front window, cracking it in a spider web pattern. A rough hand grabbed her arm and pulled her down.

  “Crawl,” snarled Aces. “If they catch any movement again, that window will be shot out. I don’t have fucking time to deal with dead people or some bitch’s injuries.”

  Emily dropped to her hands and crawled to the back of the room.

  “Psst, Emily,” someone whispered. She whipped her head toward the sound and saw Pepper on his knees inside a doorway. He motioned for her to move toward him.

  Looking over her shoulder she saw Hades’ Spawn men with their backs to her. Hurriedly she crawled to the doorway. Pepper opened the door wide and urged her inside.

  Emily blinked in surprise. It was a small apartment. A camp lantern sat on the middle of the table, beating back the encroaching darkness in the room. The table sat beside a double bed decked out with thick cushions so it could serve as a couch as well. A small galley-sized kitchen extended at the end of the bed with a half wall that had a counter on top of it, just like in her own apartment. “What is this place?” she whispered.

  Pepper locked the door. There was no window in the wall, but there was a skylight on one side in the curve of the roof.

  “Luke made these apartments for club members. What the fuck are you doing here, Emily?”

  “I needed to talk to Luke.”

  “Really? After he pushed you away?”

  “What do you know about it?”

  “Not much to know. He stopped seeing you, didn’t he?”

  “Yeah,” she mumbled and then stared Pepper straight in the eyes. “Well, fuck him!”

  Pepper stared at her in surprise. “There’s a reason he sent you off. Don’t you understand? The men in this club don’t play nice. They’re criminals. Luke was trying to protect you.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “Emily, I’d never seen a man so wrecked after you left. Whatever he did, he did for your safety, not his.”

  Emily crossed her arms as she watched Pepper. “Then he’s an ass, shoving me away, thinking he was acting all noble and shit. I have a few words for Mr. Luke Wade. He’s not going to like it.”

  Despite the seriousness of the situation around them, Pepper grinned. “Good, you do that.”

  “I will,” she snapped.

  “If we get out of here alive.”

  Emily sat down on the bed and rubbed her temple. “I guess I chose a bad day to tell him off.”

  “That’s an understatement.”

  “Can’t we call the police from here?”

  “On our cell phones?” He checked his phone. “Nope. They’re using cell jammers that reach here too.”

  “They can do that?”

  “It’s illegal. But then again, they aren’t the type of men that follow the law, are they?”

  “You seem like you don’t like them very much. Why’re you hanging out with them?”

  Pepper turned his attention to the door again. “Aces is getting antsy. Fuck, now he’s calling for me. Stay right here. Please. If you hear bullets, get down behind that counter and stay there.”

  Before Emily could say anything, Pepper hurried out of the door.

  Emily hugged herself trying to keep her terror at bay. It all felt like a terrible dream, a nightmare. She’d woken up to go wedding dress shopping, bumped into her awful ex, came home pregnant, had her stupid ex try to claim the baby as his, found out her father wasn’t her father, and then went to look for her baby’s real father, only to end up in a motorcycle club gun fight. This wasn’t a dream, it was a bloody soap opera!

  Except it was re
al. It was happening right now. She cringed as she heard men’s whispered shouting below her and above her, men crawling on the roof. Moving to the kitchen, she clutched the countertop for support.

  She couldn’t die, not now.

  “Sorry, baby,” she whispered to her unborn child. “I screwed up again.” It seemed like in the past four months she couldn’t do anything right. Pepper’s declaration that they wouldn’t make it out alive echoed in her mind. Now her impulsiveness put her and her child in a life-threatening situation.

  The minutes ticked on, the quiet in the clubhouse and the scraping sounds of men on the roof jacked her anxiety. Now her terror threatened to grow into a full-blown panic attack and she put her hands over her mouth to keep from hyperventilating. She grew lightheaded, and her stomach reeled. Suddenly the fast food roiled in her stomach, telling her that meal was a monumentally bad idea.

  Loneliness and terror closed around her. She didn’t want to be here. She didn’t know who she was anymore. The revelation that her father wasn’t her father left her numb. She couldn’t process it right now so she tried to force the thoughts away to deal with later.

  It didn’t help. She thought about her mother, in the same situation Emily was in now, pregnant, alone, and the father of her baby hanging in the wind. What caused her biological father to reject her mother? It was a question she couldn’t answer. The fact that her mother had said her biological father was in prison shook her. What had he done? Worse yet, did Emily inherit his wrongs and would she find herself always making bad decisions?

  She swiped at the tears sliding down her cheeks and pushed the thoughts away. She looked around the tidy little room and moved back to the bed, crawling into the corner and sinking into the cushions.

  Where was Luke? If he was so hell bent on being with this club instead of her, where was he in this life and death situation? He should be saving her, getting her out of this mess. She wished he would be her knight in shining armour. It was stupid, she knew it, but still…

  The creaking of the door caused her to jump. In the gathering gloom of the room darkened by the sinking of the day’s sun, she scrunched back into the cushions of the daybed, hoping that whoever entered wouldn’t notice her.

  “Emily?” hissed Pepper in an urgent whisper.

  “Yeah,” she whispered back, her voice coming out as a squeak.

  He closed the door behind him. “It’s just me. Aces is still thinking things over down there. The Rojos have lined up with their bikes, but no one is doing anything yet.”

  “What’re they waiting for?” She wished the room had a window she could look out.

  “Not to die, I think. It’s serious shit out there. Shots are going to fly. Not sure from which club, but someone will. It’s just a question of who.”

  “Why are you back here? Will they know you’re gone?”

  “I got sent to check the electrical service box, which I’ll pretend to do. But more than likely the electricity was cut off by cutting the line to the clubhouse. I looked out of the window and the security light is still on in the garage in back of the shop, so they didn’t hit that.”

  Emily stared at his profile in the growing darkness. “You seem to know a lot about this stuff.”

  “Yeah,” mumbled Pepper as he moved back toward the door. “How about we get you outta here?”

  “How?”

  “There’s a way out back.” He opened the door slightly. “The hallway’s dark, so follow me out. Just keep quiet, and stay close, okay?”

  Emily nodded her head.

  Pepper opened the door all the way and walked stealthily into the hall.

  Emily took a deep breath and followed. It seemed to take forever to walk down the length of the hall and the back stairs. There were some doors, probably leading to more rooms like the one she’d been in. Her heart thudded hard against her chest. Pepper opened the back door slightly and muddy light from the moon illuminated the trees outside. He went to step out into the gloom and immediately bullets hit the half-opened door.

  Pepper jumped back and pushed Emily back as well. He grabbed her hand and pulled her into the first little room in the hall.

  “Shit,” he hissed.

  Something wet and thick filled her palm. She moved toward the camp lantern and checked her hand. “You’re bleeding!” Emily checked his hand where a small river of blood dripped from it.

  “Yeah, it burns like a motherfucker.” He slipped it behind his back so she wouldn’t see it. “Don’t worry, it’s only a flesh wound.”

  She ignored his comment. “Where’s the bathroom?”

  “That door in the kitchen area. There.”

  Emily moved swiftly and felt around until she found a towel hanging from the bar on the wall. Making her way back through the small apartment she swiftly wrapped the towel around Pepper’s hand.

  Pounding at the door startled both of them.

  “What the fuck? Pepper!”

  Pepper went to the door and pulled it open slightly. “Stop fucking yelling,” he hissed in a low voice. “I got shot. Give me a minute.” He held his hand out the door and the towel that turned red from sopping up his blood. “Tell Aces they got us covered from the back. I can’t get out and check the box.”

  Emily heard some grumbling, but Pepper shut the door.

  “Asshole,” mumbled Pepper. He held his hand in the air, trying to stop the flow of blood. “Listen, this is my room. I brought my camping gear. There’s a first aid kit in the duffle in the closet.” He waved his good hand to the folding doors that extended down the right-hand wall.

  Emily opened the closet doors to the wide closet and retrieved the duffle and then the first aid kit. “Give me your hand.”

  Pepper yielded his hand and Emily cleaned the blood the best she could with some wipes in the kit. The bullet that hit him nicked the outer edge of his left hand. “You’re going to need to get that looked at. It looks like it’s swelling already.” She swallowed the bile in her throat, refusing to let herself gag or throw up. She was surprised at how well she managed.

  “Yeah, something’s broken in there, but we don’t have any paramedics around do we? Just put some gauze on it and wind the tape around my palm.”

  “Where’s the tape? I don’t see any.”

  “That blue roll. It’s that cohesive shit. It sticks to skin and itself.”

  “Looks pricey.”

  “It is. Works great though.”

  Emily had to agree. The tape was easy to work with, and soon Pepper’s hand was bandaged with several thick gauze pads and a layer of the cohesive tape wrapped around his palm.

  He flexed his hand and winced.

  Emily stared at the man and then to his first aid kit, which had a number of oddly pricey items in it for a general first aid kit. Pepper didn’t seem the camping kind, and for a mechanic, even one that ran with outlaw bikers, he seemed too calm and collected for what was going on around him. She swallowed. “I get the feeling you’ve done this before, Pepper.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Been in the middle of a shootout. You serve in the armed forces?”

  “Yeah,” he said grimly. “Afghanistan. Marines. After I got out of high school.”

  “Then what’re you doing with these guys? Other than that ‘prospect’ patch on your cut, you seem like a nice guy.”

  “Yeah, I’m a fucking prince.”

  “No. Don’t do that.”

  “Do what?”

  “Look, if I’m going to die, give me some honesty here.” She caught her lip, about to tell him she was pregnant with Luke’s baby. His annoyed head shake stopped her.

  “You don’t just fucking give up, do you?” he hissed.

  “I wouldn’t say that. In fact, I’ve given up on everything important in my life, especially Luke. But I’ve had enough of giving up.”

  He stared at her and then shook his head. “And look where that’s got you now.”

  “Yeah. I suppose that’s the meaning of iron
y, isn’t it?”

  “Somewhat. Yet, I’m not laughing here.”

  “You’re right. I’m not either. “

  “What the fuck you doing in there?” growled someone through the door.

  “Hold your dick. I’ll be right out.” Pepper looked into her eyes. “Go into the bathroom and get in the tub. Shit’s about to get very deep.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Wiseguys

  The click of a gun cocking behind them put both Luke and Pez on alert. Luke’s hand went to the gun tucked in the back of his waistband.

  “Easy, Spade,” said a gravelly voice. Luke recognized the voice of Shelton Rocco, the owner of the Red Bull. He preferred to be called by his nickname though.

  “Rock?”

  “Yeah. You and the spic come into the bar. We want to talk to you.”

  “Fuck you,” said Pez.

  “Shut your mouth. You don’t have a choice, asshole.”

  “My homes will be here soon.”

  “Yeah. Not a problem. They’ll wait out here with some of my family while we talk business. Move!”

  “Come on, Pez.” Luke kicked down the stand and turned off the motor.

  Warily, Pez eyed Rock and dismounted his bike. He followed Luke into the bar, Rocco followed with his gun trained on them. Luke noticed shapes of men standing by the back edge of the bar, watching the entrance to the parking lot of the bar.

  Pez muttered under his breath.

  “Shut your mouth,” warned Rock.

  The inside of the bar was dark and thick with cigarette and cigar smoke. Rocco locked the door after he entered.

  “Behind the bar,” said Rock.

  Luke made his way around the bar to find the tables mashed together in a single row and a bunch of men seated around it. Many of them were old men with sharp faces and gray hair. The younger ones were no more than in their forties. Saks sat in a booth leaning against the wall.

  “Mr. Wade,” said an elderly man at the head of the table. He spoke with a thick Italian accent like that language was his first. “I understand that we have you to thank for returning our Anthony.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Luke. “Pez helped too.”