17.

Duke

 

We’d lucked out, though we didn’t know we needed to luck out. But shit, I ain’t looking this particular gift horse in the mouth. The Department of Fish and Wildlife had motion detection cameras hooked high to several trees around the area, tracking the habits of some endangered bat. The cameras automatically snap photos every couple seconds when movement’s detected.

They contacted us this morning because in the distance on several of their photos, beyond the bats, they captured a car running Doc and Peaches off the road the morning we ended up in Nashville. Because Tommy Doyle’s police cruiser is visible, and he knows better than to keep me in the dark concerning anything having to do with my woman or Houdini, we both got calls. That is, they called him. He called me.

So now I’m standing in some stuffy office with ugly brown carpeting and even uglier nineteen-seventies utilitarian office furniture—ironically with no view of wildlife in sight—of some environmentalist, perusing grainy black and white photos.

“You gotta be shitting me,” I whisper when I spy exactly why they called us. This DFW officer would have no reason to understand the significance. He just thought he’d been doing a good deed, calling us in after an apparent hit and run.

Except, except the hit and run ain’t about some punk kid texting and driving as Doc had initially suggested. It’s a black-fucking-SUV. A black SUV matching the one that killed Jesse.

Enlarging the picture, we’re able to recover a partial license plate. Tommy leaves to call it in in his official capacity. I call Blood.

My gut physically aches. Houdini, that asshole targeted Doc and Peaches. My girls. But what’s his angle? Why Doc? Why fucking Peaches? She’s just a kid, for fuck’s sake.

“Can we make out the driver?” Blood asks me.

“’Fraid not. They’re grainy black and whites. All we can tell is that the guy’s hair ain’t black or dark brown. He’s got a beard. Which last time we saw Houdini, he had not black or dark brown hair and a beard.”

“Not a lot to go on, prez.”

“You’ve worked with less.”

“True that. Anything else?” he asks.

“Just get me something to catch this fucker. He won’t walk away breathing again.”

“On it,” Blood answers, then hangs up.

There ain’t anything I like less than feeling helpless. I felt helpless with Dawna’s cancer. Now this fucker messing with my woman, with my little girl. My family. After all this time, all these years, I got me a family and he’s trying to take ’em away from me.

“Thanks for calling.” I bite out to the DFW officer as he hands off a manila folder to Tommy, shoot Tommy a chin lift to let him know I was out and then leave them to it. Tommy will call with any more. Me, I gotta shoot.

I mount my bike freed from the sidecar, and as I’m about to spark it to life, my phone rings. It’s my second in command. My right-hand man, Boss. “Blood call?” I ask instead of hello.

“He did. But not why I’m callin’.”

My body goes tight. What could have gone wrong now? “’Sup?”

“Wanted to make sure you’re alright.”

Well that got me. “What do you mean?”

“With all that’s goin’ on. Jesse. Caity.”

Don’t usually make this kind ’a small talk with anyone. Well, except for Doc. But she’s Doc so it’s different, but I find myself answering him honestly anyway. “Don’t know how you did it with Elise. We were with you, going through it right alongside you. But it’s different when it’s your woman.”

“Sure as fuck is,” he returned without hesitation. “It was the worst. And I’m still scared, though I don’t tell her that. But he could decide to come back after her with more than notes and flowers. Or Gun and that rattle. I’m gonna be honest, I hate that he’s goin’ after Caity and Jade. But I’d be lyin’ not to admit I’m relieved that for now, he’s not comin’ after my family. And I know that makes me a dick. Because I don’t want him comin’ after yours either.”

That comment should piss me right the hell off. But he’s right. Had Dawna been alive, despite hating Houdini going after Elise and Liv, I’d have felt the same way. Which makes me a dick, too. Boy, ain’t that some shit to think about? And I do, pausing, not speaking.

“Shit,” he mutters into the line. “You’re pissed.”

“Actually, no. At all. Because that’d be me, situation reversed. Just didn’t have a family to feel that way about when it was going down with Elise.”

“So what now?” Boss asks.

“Heading to the range. I gotta shoot.”

He feels me. When we get the chance to take Houdini down, I wanna be the one to put a bullet in his brain. I want it my eyes he stares into when he takes his last breath. For Jesse. For my family. And for that, I have to be on my game. No chance that my bullet will miss the target. No fucking chance.

“Meet you there,” is all he says before hanging up.

My brothers.

This is club life.

This is what people on the outside don’t get. Why I stuck with it after my dad got sent down on weapons charges. After my uncle, and then my blood brother and all the club brothers bought it from war with the Horde, why I took my place as president. Why, in the face of losing my wife, I didn’t renounce my club. Because when shit goes down, and life is full of shit, we need people we can trust at our backs. And even if I wasn’t the president, those men would always have my back.

Only now, after shoving my phone back in my pocket, do I let the bike rumble beneath me, and ride away.

 

***

Shooting with Boss was exactly what I needed to let loose. We didn’t talk, just kept emptying round after round into the targets. Couple of hours we stayed. Yeah, I’m gonna be ready for that son of a bitch, Houdini.

Afterword, we headed back to the clubhouse. Now Boss and I, longnecks in hand, sit at the bar in the dark room. Not long ago I’d have been a willing participant in the scene unfolding all around us.

Not often we lose one of our own. Not since the full-on war with the Horde decimated both clubs. Over what? Drugs? Fucking meth. Always someone willing to smoke, inject or slam it. Kept our pockets fat. Though fat pockets didn’t help my uncle or my brother, Rex, or half the damn club. Didn’t give us the time to properly mourn our fallen brothers.

At least, even though not a fully patched-in member, Jesse’ll get his proper sendoff—eventually. And the brothers can mourn him or celebrate him or hell, just celebrate still being alive, tonight.

The clubhouse is loud, at full potency for music and inebriation. Metallica pounds through the speakers. And with all families barred tonight, the Pieces and Hot Mamas fuck brothers on the sofas and suck cock down on their knees. Sly, for his part, has Vicki-Lee bent over the pool table, pounding her ass while Blue chalks up his cue and takes another shot.

Our parties don’t usually get this carnal out in the open, but with the amount of alcohol consumed tonight, it happens.

“You miss it?” I ask Boss, tipping my bottle out to the room to indicate the debauchery before us.

“Not one damn bit. You?”

“Nah,” I answer, honestly, and take another pull from my beer.

We both laugh and shake our heads.

“And she’s healing, so it ain’t like I can even go down on her. Doctor’s orders. She can’t bend to go down on me, either.” Why I feel the need to share, who the hell knows? But I keep spewing this crap. Sharing my feelings like I’ve grown a freaking vagina. Fuck, what’s that woman done to me?

“How she dealin’?” he asks, levity gone. “With all that?”

“Best she can, I ’spect. We hit a rough spot after the memorial, but she didn’t stay mad for long. Yelled at me, got it off her chest. Burned out as fast as she ignited.”

“Bodes well for your future.”

“Everything about her bodes well for my future.”

“So you gonna marry her?”

“You know, you’re the second brother to ask that.” I laugh again, this time the humorless kind, at him and myself.

The sound of a cue ball cracking against another catches our attention. Both Boss and I look over in time to see Vicki-Lee rear her head back and hit Sly in the jaw as she lets loose a high-pitched moan, the same moment Blue sinks the solid red.

Do not miss it.

“I’m out.” Boss drops his bottle back on the bar top. “Gonna go fuck my wife now.”

“Yeah,” I reply. “Gonna head home, too.” I stand then set my bottle down. “Oh, and Boss?”

He turns to me. “Yeah?”

“Thanks, brother.”

He dips his chin then walks away. I’m not too far behind him. Since no family allowed inside right now, and that means babies that cry and make your dick go soft, Elise and Gun are with Maryanne Doyle. They’ll stay at their own house tonight, then be back here tomorrow when Boss hits work again.

While he mounts his ride, I veer left toward my home and my woman.