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Sax
"Why the fuck did no one tell me Holly was working at Grinders?"
"Didn't call church to discuss Holly," Demon said. "She's not your old lady anymore, Brother."
I didn't appreciate the brush off. I ground my back teeth until a sharp pain shot up the side of my head. Demon was right, but I still felt that withholding the information from me was a betrayal of sorts. "Thank fuck she isn't dancing and taking off her clothes, because if she were there would be heads rolling right now."
I heard some snickers, but as soon as I whipped my head around they stopped. Too many smirks to count were spread across my brothers’ faces. I wanted to smash my fist into them, including Demon’s. I crossed my arms and leaned back in my chair, prepared to hit the first brother who said the wrong fucking thing.
"Your meeting with Savage didn't exactly pan out."
I glanced over at Demon. I'd had a feeling that Savage wasn't going to take the job after our discussion at Grinders the other night. He was busy now, but asked us to give him a couple of days to see if he could work shit out. "He called then?"
Demon nodded. "This morning."
"Why'd he turn us down?" Oz asked.
"Got a commitment elsewhere." Demon leaned forward, elbows bent on the table as he steepled his fingers. "But he gave us a name of someone who might be available."
"Why doesn't one of us go in?"
"Don't want to take a chance the brother we send in will be recognized," Cole was quick to point out to Chewy.
Demon continued as if he hadn't been interrupted. "Ever hear of a nomad called Judge?"
More than one head nodded and "yeah" filtered through the room.
"Hell, yes." Colton spoke up.
"Jesus, don't tell us he used to run with your crew," Reid burst out.
Colton, along with a few others, had been patched over from Devil's Soldiers a few years ago. Their MC no longer existed.
Colton snorted. "Fuck, no. He's always been a nomad. Mean as hell motherfucker. Loyal to no one, unless you're payin' him for a job, and he'll expect half up front. Last I heard the fucker has two kids he's puttin' through college."
"We didn't ask for his resume, asshole."
He responded to Loco's sarcasm by giving him the finger.
"If he's not loyal then he can't be trusted." I snarled. Murmurs of agreement sounded throughout the room. I knew who Judge was, too, and if a man couldn't be loyal to anyone, he could flip sides on a dime. "I wouldn't want him at my back."
"Loyal, not stupid," Colton explained. "If you're payin' him he'll finish the job. He's not cheap, either."
"I've heard that about him," Oz quipped.
"That he'll finish the job, or that he's not cheap?" Dancer grinned.
"Both."
"The way you praise Judge, it almost sounds as if you have a personal gain in this."
The room grew quiet as everyone considered Cole’s words and their implication and waited for Colton's reaction. He scratched his ear and shook his head. "Never met the man. Just know about him, and from what I’ve heard about his background, he'd probably get picked up by the Knights faster than Savage would have."
"That's fucking good enough for me," Demon announced, drawing everyone's attention his way. "I've already run it by Trip, and he's on board. Any ayes for hiring Judge to infiltrate the Knights?"
I scanned the room as arms shot up in the air. It looked as if everyone was on board.
"Any nays?"
Not one.
Demon swung his eyes to me. "You know what to do."
I gave him a chin lift before looking over at Oz. "Let's meet after church." Oz was our computer guru. It had taken him less than an hour to locate Savage. I expected it would take longer for him to find Judge, though. Nomads were good at not being found if they didn’t want to be.
"We got trouble!"
I snapped my head in Cole's direction. He was sitting next to me, his head bent as he frowned down at something on his phone. His expression looked grim. "Just got a message from Bull." He got to his feet before he finished reading. "Their clubhouse was hit!"
"Fucks" exploded throughout the room as my brothers and I jumped to our feet to head out.
"How bad?" We were running shoulder to shoulder toward our bikes.
"Didn't say, just that the place was fucking shot up."
Brothers reached for their helmets and jumped on their bikes, their swift actions revealing their eagerness to take off. They revved up the powerful machines between their legs, forced to wait for Demon to take the lead. It sounded like thunder and the ground shook as we got in line and followed behind him through the gate. I was directly behind him, followed by Cole, and then the others. As we raced away from the clubhouse, I wondered what we were going to find at LD's.
I hadn't been there yet, hadn't had a chance. We went full throttle where we could. Once we reached the outskirts of Boulder City we jumped on the interstate to go the rest of the way. Now wasn't the time to take the scenic route. It didn't take long before we reached the exit and got off, and then we rode through parts of busy Vegas before winding up on a quiet road that took us the rest of the way to the clubhouse.
The first thing I noticed as we pulled through the gate and rode past the prospect who was manning it was that the clubhouse was in a good location. It was dark, so it was difficult to make out how much damage had been done to the building, but the broken windows were evident. There were a couple of wounded bikes in the front, if the way their riders were swearing and looking them over was any indication. I frowned, wondering where the rest of them were. I shut my bike down and shot a look toward Cole. "Did Bull say they went after the shooters?"
He shook his head as I brought my leg over my seat to get off. "They park behind the building for this very reason."
"Doesn't make for a fast getaway." Loco had obviously overheard.
"No, but it saves a fuck-ton of money on replacing bikes and bike parts," Oz quipped as we headed toward the door in a fast pace. "Think of how many bikes could have been crippled."
"Always a fucking pain in the ass," I agreed.
Demon burst through the door and the rest of us followed. I immediately scanned the large bar, taking in the slight chaos that still filled the room.
"Where the fuck is LD?"
The room quieted. Demon's shout drew everyone's attention to where he'd come to a stop.
Bull came out from somewhere in the back. "Gone, Prez. After the shooting died down he took some brothers after them."
"Did you see who the fuck did this?" I snarled.
"It was too dark to see, Brother."
"A fucking drive-by." The man who'd come to stand next to Bull had a patch that revealed that he was the secretary. "They hit fast and didn't hang around for introductions."
"What's the damage?" Demon asked.
Bull motioned to a brother who was sitting at one of the tables with two women fussing over him. It was obvious from the way they were dressed that they were club girls. Taking in the location of the blood on the wounded man, it looked as if he'd taken a hit to the arm and the leg.
"The prospect at the gate took a couple rounds. He heard them coming but didn't realize they meant trouble till shots were fired."
I nodded. "Good thing it was dark, or their aim would have been better."
"And we'd be planning a funeral," Bull said with a twist of disgust on his lips. "Had enough of that shit the last year."
No one said anything in response to that.
"Is Doc on the way?" I questioned, looking around.
"Yeah, I called him as soon as I heard gunfire." The secretary held out his hand. "I'm Blade, Brother." I grasped his hand. "Don't think I've met you before."
"Sax." We shook hands briefly. "I was away until recently." Normally I wouldn't have explained myself to anyone, but I felt it was necessary, considering that he was a brother and a patched officer to LD.
"Anyone else hurt?" Demon's gaze moved about the room, as if looking for the answer for himself.
"No, thank fuck," answered another brother whose name I didn't know.
"Fuck!"
"Oh, stop being a baby," a feminine voice scolded. I glanced to where the girls were trying to staunch the flow of blood running out of the prospect.
"What's your name, kid?"
He glanced up, his eyes wild and glossy from pain. "Morgan."
"Could you make out anything?"
He shook his head, his lips turned down at the corners. "Everything happened too fucking fast. Once they started shooting, I started shooting back and took off for cover. I can't even tell you how many there were, but I do know this—they were fucking bikers. I couldn't see their colors, but I recognized that at least."
I cut my eyes to Demon. "You think some of us should go after LD and the others for backup?"
"Yeah. This could have been a plan to get some of our brothers away from the clubhouse to ambush them."
I headed back toward the door. "Loco, Reid, Colton—you brothers are with me."
I knew that whoever had hit the clubhouse wasn’t heading back to Vegas because we would have met them on the road. We took off in the opposite direction, racing blindly in the night down a road that didn't have street lights, just the occasional reflector.
It wasn't long before we came upon LD and the rest of the brothers, heading back in our direction. We simultaneously slowed down and came to a slow crawl when we met up on the road. The savage look on LD's face revealed his anger and frustration, the brothers riding with him wearing the same tight-jawed expressions. They looked ready and geared up for war.
"Lost the fuckers!" LD shouted over the rumble of our bikes. "Too much of a head start!"
I gave him a chin lift and turned my bike around to head back to his clubhouse. It took us no more than five minutes to get back. "You think it was the Knights?" I asked as we headed inside.
"They're the only ones causing shit right now," LD snarled in a tone that said he thought so.
He nearly tore the door off the hinges when he snatched it open hard enough for it to slam back against the wall. I knew what he was looking for when his head snapped to the side, but Morgan wasn't there. Just some bloody rags.
"The girls are taking care of him in one of the rooms 'til Doc gets here."
I had a call coming in, and when I pulled my phone out, I saw Morty's name flash across the screen. He ran the tattoo shop for us. My first thought was that he must be working late tonight. "Yeah?" The first thing I heard in response was his rapid breathing, and a feeling in my gut told me that I wasn't going to like what he had to say.
"He's dead! He's dead! B-Bikers just sh-shot up the p-place!" He was tripping over his words in an effort to get them out. It was obvious he was scared shitless.
"Fuck! Calm down," I ordered. "Who's dead?" The sudden silence in the room revealed that everyone had stopped what they were doing to listen to my conversation.
"A cu-customer! I'd just finished him." He was breathing as if he'd just run a marathon. "We were at the register when the shooting started. It happened so fast! I heard the bikes but thought they were you guys!"
"Did you see who it was?"
"The Knights!"
"Shit! You sure?"
"Yeah, I saw the back of their cuts. What do I do?"
A civilian had been killed. There was only one thing he could do. "Okay, listen up. Call 911. Don’t tell them or the cops that the shooters were bikers, just tell them it was a drive-by and you didn't see anything. Got it?"
I could hear Morty take a deep breath. "Yeah, okay."
"A couple brothers will be there in a few. Stay put."
I was about to put my phone away when another call came in. "The fuck?" I muttered to myself when I saw that it was Samson. He was the night manager at Grinders. I had a gut feeling we were in for more trouble. "What?"
As I listened to him relay what was going on, I noticed Demon and LD quietly step away from the brothers surrounding them and pulling out their phones, too.
Something was definitely going down.
Jesus Christ, the same fucking thing that had occurred here and at the tattoo shop had happened at Grinders! Bikers had driven by, shooting off their guns into the building. The whole time I listened to Samson explaining what had occurred, my only thought had been on Holly and whether or not she'd been working tonight. No one had been killed, but three people leaving the bar had been wounded in the parking lot. Samson had already called it in.
"Son-of-a-bitch!" LD snarled, when his call was over. "They hit the construction site we've been working."
"That was Trip," Demon began, pocketing his phone. "A couple of their businesses got hit, too." His sharp look encompassed everyone in the room, and I could tell that his mind was spinning.
Everyone looked to him for the answers. He had to be thinking about the brothels we owned and wondering when we'd get word that they'd been hit too. There was also the fact that we’d left our own clubhouse with low coverage.
"Fuck infiltrating the Knights," I snarled. "We need to do something about this shit now. They want war, we give it to them!"
More than one brother made his agreement known.
Demon and I locked eyes. I couldn't tell if he agreed with me or not, but as his VP I knew he'd weigh my words carefully. Maybe I’d overstepped my bounds, but after everything that had gone down tonight, we needed to retaliate sooner rather than later. Show those fuckers we weren't pussies.
"We need to go after those fuckers now!" Cappy, LD's VP, spoke up in a heated tone. He was an older brother, still in good shape, but right now his face was red, and I imagined that his blood pressure had risen, too.
"Agree!" LD said in a guttural tone, his jaw grinding and his eyes glittering with rage.
Demon took in the gazes of all the brothers in the room. He understood what we wanted. None of us wanted to wait to show the Knights that they were fucking with the wrong club. We were ready and eager now as we all stood looking at our president, waiting for his response.
"Looks like we're going to war, Brothers!"