CHAPTER 26: Theo
His name was Cecil, and he came up this road nearly every day to get home to his small farmstead a few miles further up the hill. He was old, gaunt, and unshaven, but stopped beside Frost’s Harley to inspect the flat tire saying we were lucky he came by, as so few people used this road.
He started talking to me about riding Panheads and Shovelheads in his youth, and was delighted to hear that Frost’s scoot was based on a pre-Evo Harley. After that, he couldn’t have been happier to help me load it onto his flatbed and take us to Handle’s Bar. We talked at length on the twenty-mile drive up the mountain. Or, rather, he talked and I listened. I wasn’t in a mood to reminisce about the good old days of motorcycles knowing I that, with each passing yard, I was getting closer to having to tell Tina that Frost was dead.
Cecil took to Piper, unsurprisingly, and regaled her with tales of his past heroics and good times. She listened, asked all the right questions, and seemed fascinated by everything he said. She really had a talent for making men feel important which I figured, was as much a part of her job at Madam X’s as the sex. I’d seen her do it with other guys too, just giving them the slightest impression that they may, one day, have a chance at sleeping with her and they would do nearly anything for her.
***
We pulled up to the bar and, even though there were more bikes than ever parked out front, there was no music, just a solemn feel about the place, and there were no slow-moving cycles with half naked girls on the back riding up and down in front of the building. A crowd came out to greet us, though, and Cecil was hailed as a hero for the good turn he did us. He was smiling from ear to ear as he was handed a beer and taken away to talk about Harleys.
Although everyone must have noticed we were bringing in Frost’s bike with no Frost, no one said anything and no one would until I’d had a chance to talk to his woman. Surely, some of them must have noticed that Piper wore Frost’s vest?
Link shook my hand and hugged me in silence. He knew what the news was, even though I hadn’t told him on the phone, and I could see the tears glistening in his eyes. Piper kissed him hello too and he led us into the inner lounge. Tina was waiting for us, sat in Frost’s usual place on the couch. She didn’t look up when we came in.
“Give us a moment, Link?” she said it as a question but it was an order. He lowered his head and left the room, closing the door quietly behind him. Tina didn’t look as if she’d been crying, didn’t look as if she was going to cry, she just stared off into the middle distance until, eventually, she said one word, “How?”
I swallowed, grateful that I didn’t have to break the news to her but, at the same time, devastated at the loss she, and we all, were having to endure. “We didn’t see,” I started. “He rescued us both. Then Vinnie hit us on the way here. They both got shot, but Frost didn’t make it.” I got the impression she didn’t need the details.
“Where is he?” she demanded.
“Torn and twisted at the foot of a burning bike,” I quoted the line from Bat Outta Hell as it was exactly true. “We left him at the bottom of the canyon, right where my scoot wrecked.”
“Food for the bears, cougars, and coyotes,” she smiled. She looked at us for the first time. “He’d have liked that.”
Piper, quiet up to this point, suddenly remembered something. She unzipped the vest and took it off, folding it carefully. Ignoring the fact that she was down to her bra, she reverently presented the vest to Tina.
“I’m so sorry,” Piper whispered, “he was good to me. Far better than I had any right to expect.”
“Thanks, honey,” Tina took the vest from her. “Go get another shirt, same place as last time.” The two women hugged and Piper headed back to the bedroom. She turned to me as she went, her face sad, her eyes shining. Tina faced me as Piper left the room. “Theo…” she said. “This Vinnie is still alive? Walking around?”
I nodded.
“I need him not to be,” she stated, her voice simply matter of fact.
“We’re at war, Tina…” I began.
“And now you’re in charge.”
I wasn’t sure I heard her right. “Me? Why am I in charge?” I asked.
“Because Frost always wanted you to be,” she smiled. “He’s been grooming you for years. Sending you to these jobs, making sure your values were right. You're smarter than the average Steel Angel, Theo. Maybe it’s a little earlier than he intended, but it’s what he wanted. You’re our leader now, Theo. No one’s going to argue, no one’s going to disagree with Frost’s judgment. It’s up to you to win this war for us.”
I stood there, dumbstruck. All I wanted to do was take Piper and get the fuck out of Dodge. Now this? Piper came out of the bedroom with a dark gray Lynyrd Skynyrd t-shirt on. It hugged her figure and showed off her slim waist even better than the Motley Crew one.
“What did I miss?” she asked, sensing the tension in the room.
“Your boyfriend just got a promotion, honey,” said Tina.
***
I thought Link might be disappointed, or Marco even, as they’d been Frost’s lieutenants at least as long as I could remember, but he just shook my hand while Marco got us a round of tequila shooters to toast my ascension.
“It makes sense,” said Link. “Always knew it was you that was going to take over, dog.”
“He made us promise to support you and help you out,” joined Marco, “and take your instructions as though they were his.”
This was it. This was why we were better than outfits like the Mob, the Cartels, the Bloods and Crips, and even the Hell’s Angels. We didn’t traffic drugs and we were a family. We supported each other, one hundred per cent, and stayed united against everything the world could throw at us.
Link led Piper and I out to the covered band tent. Pretty much every Steel Angel was gathered as we took the stage. Tina was there, still holding Frost’s vest. She led the crowd in a drink to Frost, as well as to the other brothers that had fallen this past afternoon. All I could think of was how fast the Mob had moved.
I had guessed wrong when I thought Vinnie would wait for backup from the other families before striking. We couldn’t match them for numbers and now, it seemed, we couldn’t rival the speed they could organize things. It was like Vinnie had been organizing the three or four operations that had gone off already via his cell phone as he drove away from forcing us off the road. It was that fast.
I figured he could already have had men in place, just waiting for us to give him an excuse to make a move but that would be crazy. So then, considering Vinnie, it was entirely probable.
Link took over, explaining that Frost had gone down fighting and that we should honor him by abiding by his last words. That he’d chosen me, a long time ago, to take over as president. To my relief, a cheer of agreement met his statement. Tiny even stepped up on stage, the thin wooden boards straining and creaking in protest, and picked me up like a rag doll. He set me on his shoulders and, after the dizzy sensation from being up so high passed, I raised my fist to my brothers. Piper just stood by, smiling radiantly. She totally looked like she belonged.
I hadn’t planned for this. I didn’t know I was in line to take over the crew, and I hadn’t had any chance to ask her what she wanted; did she want to be part of this gang, this family? Spend her days helping me keep our enemies at bay, keep the cash rolling in, and feeding the hungry mouths that made up the ugly mob we were looking at right now?
“And, dog?” continued Link to me while handing something to Piper, “If you ever find it, maybe you could ask your beautiful woman to sow this to your vest.”
“Your woman?” she smiled at me, holding up a patch with ‘President’ written on it. I shrugged at her, unable to stop myself grinning back. I hadn’t planned for this, no, but the thought of this beautiful girl staying by my side as we faced the world, together with my family, made me happy.
“Now, what’s the club rule about failing to represent?” Link called out to the audience.
“Oh, shit, no!” I yelled, throwing my hands out to him. I suddenly realized why Tiny still had a hold of me.
“What is it?” Piper asked Tina. She whispered into Piper’s ear, who looked up and laughed at me.
“Sorry, dog,” said Link, holding out his hands, “You know the punishment for not wearing your vest.”
“For fuck’s sake,” I shook my head and placed my guns in his open palms. “I need them back!” I called, as Tiny bounded off the stage and out towards the woods.
I don’t know how he carried me and ran. Tiny’s strength really was amazing. In no time, we were at the edge of the hole, with most of the crew following and jeering. I looked down from on top of the big guy’s shoulders. From up here it must have been nearly twenty feet down to the slick black ooze that gathered in this pit behind the clubhouse. Decades of spilled motor oil, gasoline, booze, trash, probably sewage, and worse had gone into creating the dark and unspeakable morass that passed for the wet mud down there.
“Sorry, Theo,” said Tiny as he held me over the abyss.
“I don’t suppose there’s any chance I can get you to rethink this, is there?” I tried.
“Nope.”
“I figured.”
I had no time to do anything as Tiny tipped me off him and into the filth. I landed pretty softly, but the foul smelling, sticky black stuff got everywhere. In my mouth, my nose, my eyes, even my ears, however, not enough block out the loud baying and howling from my crew. Actually my crew. I was now their leader, and this was how they chose to celebrate that fact. It made sense, though, my first act as president couldn’t be to disregard our rules as though they don’t apply to the boss.
I wiped my eyes and could even see Piper laughing at me. Yeah, it looked like she belonged with this bunch, which was just as well. Before long, a rope was lowered and Tiny was able to pull me up. Everyone cleared a path as I tried to throw some of the mud on me at them, except Piper. She stood fast in front of me, daring me to get her dirty. A collective hush fell over the gang as we faced off, her thinking that she, above all, was safe. This was the moment, the time to define her role in this crew, whether she knew it or not, and I had to let her have it. I lowered my soiled hands and left her unmuddied.
“Come on, let’s get you into the shower,” she smiled, as if I was a tiresome child that had come home messy again. I saw Tina smile, a small expression of pride on her face, and I knew the Steel Angels would listen to Piper as they had done Tina. Now she totally belonged.
***
The screen door was open, the hot water quickly filling the room with steam, but all I could see was Piper’s naked body, almost hidden among the gathering mists. She was facing away from me, so I stole in behind her and ran my hands over her shoulders and down her arms.
“Hey, get off me!” she snapped. “No touching until you’ve washed all that shit off you.”
The bathroom that was built just off the bedroom behind the central lounge of the main cabin was pretty large, with no actual cubicle just a big shower head that emptied itself over a tiled floor. Piper took a few steps away from me and turned to watch me, leaning against the wall. I worked and scrubbed to get the mess off me, while she supervised with a little smile on her lips.
I couldn’t help it, I was getting hard again, just watching her stand naked before me. I stopped washing for a minute to finally take in the perfection that was her, nude. Her skin was flawless, toned, and tanned. Her long neck drew down to her slender shoulders, which then filled out into the most perfect, pert, full pair of breasts I had ever seen, each pointed with a small, beautiful pink nipple. My dick grew even larger as my eyes traveled down her luscious body, over her trim waist with its cute, pouting naval, down her slim hips, and onto the bare mound between her supple, shapely thighs.
She allowed herself a wider smile, accompanied by an appreciative moan, as she saw my erection growing. “I think you’re clean enough now,” she purred, stepping back under the warm water. She spread her arms as the shower washed over her, turning away from me to let the liquid cascade down over her breasts. I moved up behind her once more, sliding my fingers sensually up the sides of her body, bringing a soft gasp from her as I reach the round edges of her breasts.
My dick twitched as I touched her, throbbing gently against her firm, sexy ass. Without turning, she reached back and wrapped her fingers softly around my engorged shaft. The light contact made me shudder, which seemed to please her more, encouraging her to tighten her grip on me.
I slid my hands back down her body, across her flat stomach, down to that smooth mound of delicate skin above her pussy. I brushed my finger over her clit, searching for entry to her warm, welcoming hole. She moaned again, pushing her hips out to help me, and started to slowly pump my dick in her small fist. I rubbed my fingers gently and quickly between the light folds of her soft lips, over her sweet spot, and before long, her breathing grew more rapid as she began to grind herself against my hand. I felt her slick wetness against my fingers, even under the water falling down on us.
Her moans became louder and more intense. My free hand roamed across her breasts, playing with her hard nipples, while she pushed her pussy further onto my fingertips. She dropped my erection and placed both her hands on mine, forcing my hand harder against her and my fingers deeper into her, guiding my touches just where she wanted them until, with a deep groan, her knees buckled and she came on my hand.
“Oh, fuck…!” she panted, turning in my arms to pull my mouth onto hers. She bit my lips and sucked on my tongue, her fingernails scraping their way over my neck and through my wet hair, my desperate cock pulsing with every new sensation she sent through me. “Mmm, fuck I love you so much,” she smiled as she let go of my mouth.
“I love you too,” I said back, “I love everything about you, including making you cum.”
“Oh, me too,” she purred, dropping to her knees in front of me.
Tantalizingly slowly, she wrapped her lips around the head of my dick, those stunning blue eyes fixed on mine as she held me in her mouth, gently sucking on me like a popsicle. Suddenly, though, she swallowed as much of me as she could fit. She giggled softly as she felt me throb against the roof of her mouth, then took me in hand again and jerked the thick shaft of my cock, hard. I hissed as she pleasured my stiff member with so many sexy and ecstatic sensations, pausing every so often to prolong my agony as I throbbed against her. I was getting close, and she could sense it so, without a word, she stood up and led me by the dick, out of the shower and into the bedroom.
“Lay down,” she breathed into my ear.
She pushed me gently down onto the thick, white, sheepskin rug that lay beside the bed. As I lay on my back, she stood over me. Her legs wide above me it was like I was looking up into heaven. My cock was so hard, pointing straight up in the air, so she slowly lowered herself down. She guided me carefully towards her pussy and, as I slipped easily inside her, I let out a long breath that I didn’t know I was holding. Her eyes closed as she sank further down on me, a low, silent moan emanating from her mouth as my full length became enclosed in her warmth. Staying on her feet, pushing her pussy down onto me as far as she could, she stopped.
Her hand appeared from behind her, where she’d been steadying herself against my thigh, and she slid it down her stomach until it was between her open legs. Opening her eyes again, she gently rubbed her clit. She stared me straight in the eye and I held her gaze as her breathing began to quicken again. Small, high groans escaped her lips, and she made slight bucking movements with me still deep inside her. Each tiny jolt worked the smallest friction against my sensitive cock, which felt amazing, but I couldn’t take my eyes away from her as she frigged herself off on top of me. Within seconds, she was shaking her head violently from side to side.
“Oh, oh, fuck!” she squealed and quickly stopped touching herself. “Woo, a little mini one.” She smiled and curled each leg until she was kneeling over me instead of crouching. The movement pushed me even deeper inside her, which caused us both to sigh, simultaneously.
I could tell she loved having this power over me. She was perched above me like a cat toying with a doomed mouse. I reached up to fondle those fantastic titties. My fingers managed one gentle caress of her bullet-hard nipples before she seized my wrists, leaned forward, and pushed my hands to the floor above my head.
Piper smiled and ground herself hard on my dick, groaning as she pushed. I gasped instinctively. Still holding my wrists, she rocked back and forth on me, causing the sweetest sensations as the soft, velvet walls of her pussy surrounded, enclosed, and completely embraced my throbbing erection. I thrust my hips up, hitting her deeper inside, and she responded by bouncing on me, slowly at first, then steadily increasing her pace. Soft, guttural moans escaped her throat every time she drove herself down on me, while I kept pushing further, desperate to reach as far inside her as I could.
Piper closed those stunning blue eyes and started screwing herself down on me even more urgently. She let go of my wrists and sat back up. Our thrusting speed increased to a frenzied pace, every muscle in our bodies focused on keeping those sexual points fused together, straining to reach just a fraction closer. My cock felt swollen, bigger and harder than it ever had been.
Piper threw her head back, her beautiful breasts bouncing, shining with sweat in the low light. She was screaming now, swearing and shaking as my thrusts pushed her closer and closer to the edge until, with a long, drawn-out, ‘Ohhhh fuuuck!’ I felt her pussy explode over me. She let her body fall onto my chest, limp, her pussy still grinding against me as a reflex, and cried out with each stab of my dick penetrating her.
“Oh… my… fuck…!” she moaned. “Can’t… stop… cumming…! Feels so… good…!”
The noises she made, the things she said, the incredible feeling of her orgasming on top of me… It was all too much, and I couldn’t take anymore. Each movement of us joined together became another step nearer to the point of no return. Then, finally, I gave a mighty thrust and came, spurting out great loads of jizz inside her.
My head was dizzy and my body numbed as my cock burst, shooting an ongoing volley of thick liquid deep into her pussy. We yelled, screamed, and thrashed, cumming so hard together, until we slowed, like a stormy sea returning to calm, then lay still, sweat slowly cooling on our worn out bodies, my softening erection still firmly clutched by her exquisite sex muscles.
Eventually, she rolled onto her back and lay beside me, luxuriating in the soft, thick rug. She twisted and stretched, enjoying the furry feel against her skin. I swear I heard her purring.
“So, I’m your biker bitch now?” she laughed. She turned on her side and began tracing circles on my chest.
“I wouldn’t call it that, but yeah,” I replied. “If you want to be.”
“I hadn’t properly thought about what I was going to do after I got away from Madam X,” she said, chewing her lip thoughtfully. The way her mouth moved was one of the most erotic things I’d ever seen, and she didn’t even realize she was doing it.
“What about San Francisco, New Orleans, Europe?” I reminded her.
“Romantic ideas,” she said, “I mean, doable, but I didn’t think it could actually happen. We were on a pretty serious fuck-high when we were talking about that.”
“True,” I chuckled at the sexy memory.
“But you need to be here now, to lead your crew, don’t you?”
“I guess,” I told her. “I mean, I didn’t ask for this, no one would mind if I… what’s the word?”
“Abdicated?”
“Good enough. Point is, after this war is over, we’ll be free to stay or to go.” I looked at her. She appeared to be thinking again.
“Would we live here?” she indicated the bedroom which, despite being part of a log cabin/biker bar on the outside, was extremely comfortable and well-appointed inside, right down to the wide, low bed we were lying next to.
“I guess. I mean, it’s up to Tina, but I reckon she’ll want to get another place. And it makes sense for the club leader to stay here.”
“Okay!” she announced. “Get the hell up and win this war then.” She started pushing me up off the floor.
“Are you serious?” I complained. I wanted to stay on the furry rug with her nakedness.
“Damn right. You’ve got a job to do and it looks like I’m the girl whose job is to make sure you do it,” she smiled as she managed to make me get up. “Get back in that shower. We’ve got battle plans to make.”
***
And so we did. As soon as we were ready, I called a meeting with Link and Marco. We ate barbecue chicken plates while we figured out what to do. I had the word sent out to pull everyone out of the jobs we were working and get back to the bar. It was maybe going to cost us some contracts, but we’d have to eat that. I needed the only place Vinnie and his guys were going to find Steel Angels to be back here at this club house.
We had lookouts posted on all the routes up to the bar, with signals in place so we would have about fifteen minutes to get ready if they took the bait. I was trusting on Vinnie to decide we were on the run, and to want to come and finish the job himself. Then all we had to do was wait. That was the hard part.
The sun was getting low, throwing long shadows up the clearing, so I took Piper out the back of the cabin, to where the brothers sometimes like to let off a few rounds. We had a dugout dirt wall behind a trio of dummies. I set us up at about twenty-five feet from the targets and let her finally fire some live ammo. I didn’t ask where she’d managed to get hold of the Glock 19 she’d been carrying, but I was able to show her the differences between it and my SIG and, when she’d practiced getting her grip right, she was nailing the bad guys four out of five times. We switched guns. She practiced with my M&P and, about five hundred rounds later, she was pretty competent.
“Well, technically speaking,” she smiled at me when we were packing up, “I guess that was our second date. You sure know how to show a girl a good time.”
“Just so long as you don’t expect me to put out,” I said, “if it’s only the second date. Here, though. I got you some presents.” I gave her three, non-California legal, fifteen-round magazines of nine-millimeter bullets. It wasn’t hard to find some extra Glock mags among the brothers.
“Gee, so thoughtful,” she joked.
“I’ll make it up to you after the war,” I said, pulling her in to kiss her.
“Hate to break up the party, dog,” called Link, out of the venue tent, “but we got incoming.”
“Serious?” I asked him.
“As a heart attack, dog.”
I’d already briefed Piper to stay by me. I knew I was never going to get her to stay away, but I didn’t want her in the fighting either. I taught her to shoot for self-defense only, she didn’t need to find out what it was like to kill someone, even a bad guy. We ran up to the covered area and found most of the gang gathering and passing around rifles. I had two extra mags for my SIG now, but I accepted an AR15 from Marco and a couple of extra clips.
“Okay, brothers!” I yelled. “Spread out well! You know what to do! Let’s show these wop assholes how Angels do things!”
A resounding cheer erupted and several of the guys hopped on dirt bikes and four-wheel ATVs and powered away from the bar in different directions. I grabbed Piper’s hand and led her over to another four wheeler. I got on and she threw her leg over the back behind me. I felt her arm wrap around my waist and her lips on my cheek.
“I love you,” she said quietly.
“Me too,” I smiled back. I gunned the motor and we powered off up the hill, towards the trees.
Parking the ATV behind the thick trunk of an old oak, we dismounted and lay on the ground. The bar itself was about a hundred and fifty yards away from where we waited, in the middle of this wide, miniature land basin. At least two-thirds of the land behind the building incorporated the crest of a small hill just behind the tree line giving us the great spots to spread ourselves out, stay unseen, and all aim down towards the bar itself. The other side, beyond the road that ran past it, the land was clear, open, and with a shallow downhill angle. It was almost nature had provided the perfect barrel for us to shoot our fish in.
Piper lay next to me. Her face looked serious, but not scared. “Are you okay?” I asked her. Her expression didn’t change but she gave me a thumbs up.
“How long?” she inquired.
“Any minute.”
“Why don’t I have a rifle?”
“Do you know how to shoot one?”
“I don’t see how that’s relevant.”
I smiled at her as she pouted, then she pointed down to the road, where it carved through the low hill to enter the clearing. A black Mercedes appeared and stopped, almost exactly where Piper and I had waited the first night I brought her here, where she’d taken off her shorts to ride naked.
We had a dozen guys hanging out in front of the bar, along with most of the bikes, to give the impression the place was still full. As instructed, they retreated inside as soon as they saw the car approaching. What the dicks in the car couldn’t see, was the brothers running straight out the back of the clubhouse and dispersing into the woods as well, leaving the place empty.
The Mercedes rolled on, fully appearing in the clearing followed by another Mercedes, an Escalade, then a big, fixed axle cargo truck, and a van. The cars, the SUV, and the van stopped short, about fifty feet from the bar, but the truck just kept barreling on. It wasn’t going too fast, taking a straight line over the rough terrain, but it sure wasn’t stopping.
It drove right on into the first row of bikes, crushing some under its wheels and sending others flying through the air to knock over even more, then it plowed through the second row as well. There were going to be some tears among the brothers tonight. Still, the truck didn’t stop. It thundered on and smashed straight into the bar, just to the right of the central cabin.
The moment it struck, a dozen or more men jumped out the back of it. They all carried shotguns or rifles and immediately began shooting up the building. More men exited the other vehicles, at least another dozen, and moved to join their buddies, firing at the club as well. It was time. I signaled to Marco, who was about forty feet to my right, at a little higher elevation, and he aimed down the scope of the hunting rifle he was carrying. One shot and he dropped one of the mobsters.
The others were so busy shooting up the bar they didn’t seem to notice, but I knew the brothers did. I knew the guys that had been hiding by each end of the road were making barricades now, blocking off the Mob’s escape routes, while the rest of us opened fire. At this distance, it was tough to pick out a target and hit it without a magnifying scope, which is why I had Marco and a few others dotted around with hunting rifles. Those of us with carbines and regular rifles just opened up at the whole group of bad guys, knowing that with enough bullets flying that way, enough of them would get hit.
The wise guys started falling and the rest began looking panicking and around confused. The smarter ones ducked for cover behind their cars but, as we had them almost surrounded on three sides, the was nowhere they could really hide. Others switched their targets, firing blindly at the trees to hopefully hit one of their unseen attackers, but they quickly fell too.
One of them actually looked like he was shooting in our direction. I reloaded and fired six shots at him before he went down. As he did, though, one of his rounds hit the mud a foot and a half in front of Piper, spraying up dirt over her with a dull thud. She yelped and scooted over closer to me, but answered my concerned expression with a quick peck on the cheek.
One of the Mercedes started moving, dust kicking up from its rear tires as it slid around in a U-turn to speed out the way it came in. I concentrated fire on the few mobsters still standing, knowing the car wouldn’t get far. The driver would find his way blocked and be gunned down as he tried to get out or turn and escape the other way.
Less than a minute. That’s how long it took, how long we were shooting for, before the last guy dropped. Silence washed over the clearing, along with a thin film of light gray smoke that began slowly drifting upwards. I signaled to Marco again, who let out a piercing, two-fingered whistle to sound the all clear.
Piper jumped up. I figured she was anxious to make sure Vinnie had been taken care of. I picked myself up too, turning to face her. I was probably about to say something lovey-dovey to her, when I saw her face. Her expression switched from determined hope to actual terror in the blink of an eye. I was about to ask her what was wrong, but she just grabbed me and spun me around, pointing.
I saw Marco, still holding his rifle and looking down to the bar but, behind him, there were three figures I didn’t recognize and they all had guns.
“Marco!” I yelled, lifting my AR-15 and taking aim. He looked up at me in surprise. “Drop!”
He didn’t ask why, didn’t look around to see the trouble, he just launched himself down the shallow hill. An instant before the ground beneath him was torn up by shotgun shells. I fired the rest of my clip at the mobsters who had appeared, aiming a dozen or so bullets center mass and watching them drop to the floor. My rifle clicked empty with one man still standing.
Piper was on her knees beside me, firing her Glock at him. He was easily thirty yards away so she didn’t have much hope of hitting him, but it made him keep his head down. I drew my SIG and fired too, as I saw Marco lining up his shot.
The guy went down. Piper jumped back up.
“I got him! Did you see that?” she hugged me. I looked over at Marco, who gave me the all-clear, smoking rising from the barrel of his gun.
“I’m pretty sure it was Marco. Relax, killer,” I smiled at her. She looked upset for a second, then a wave of relief seemed to wash over her face.
“Oh, thank God,” she sighed. “I’m not sure I could handle actually shooting someone yet.” She hugged me again and I held her, one handed. We got the word out and searched. We found no more mobsters in the woods but we did discover that this small gang had out flanked and killed two of our guys. I guessed they’d been let out of the truck early to either do what they did or to wait in reserve. They must have decided to act when they heard the shooting start.
***
“Wow,” whispered Piper as we stood over the tree dead men. “This one was Pauley, remember him?”
“How could I forget?” I replied, “Especially as this one was Rico.” I recognized him from my first standoff with Vinnie.
“All this death and violence, though, you’re okay with it?” I asked her as I held my hand out to help her up onto the ATV.
“Maybe a few years ago I might have been more upset,” she replied. “Do I think it’s right that you two armies of men should be blowing each other to pieces? No. But I don’t blame you guys. When it’s all said and done, Vinnie is responsible for this. Right now, I just hope that asshole is dead down there.”
My crew was already sorting through the bodies. It was a gruesome business, but some of the mobsters were still alive and needed putting down. I left Piper on the four wheeler and checked through the dead. They’d all been laid face up already so I just had to scan over them. But there was no Vinnie among them. Fuck!
I got on the phone to the guys at the entrance barricade. They told me the car that made a break for it had a fat, bald guy who took six bullets to bring down. Still not Vinnie. I looked over at Piper, sitting there with a hopeful look in her eyes. I gently shook my head and watched her face fall.