Clara

 

I raised my gun, but Mick put a hand on it and pushed it back down.

 

“No, wait,” he told me.

 

“But look at them. Skull has Mason on the ground,” I pleaded.

 

“That’s fine,” Mick argued. “Just wait. Mason’s got this. I can feel it.”

 

“But what if he doesn’t?” I asked.

 

“But he does.”

 

I lowered my weapon and watched. I couldn’t see what was going on. Skull’s back was to us. All I could see was that he was straddling Mason, and it looked like he was pressing Mason’s rifle down on his throat. I took a couple of steps closer to try to get a better look. I walked carefully, quietly.

 

I could hear them talking, but they were keeping their voices low. The conversation was obviously just between them; we weren’t meant to hear it. As I got closer, I realized it was getting much easier to see outside. The light was getting brighter. Soon, the sun would be coming up, and traffic would pick up again along the interstate.

 

“It’s going to be daylight soon,” I told Mick.

 

“I know. We need to hurry up and finish this. I wish Mason would go ahead and shoot him already,” Mick said.

 

“Well, shouldn’t we do something about the mess?” I asked.

 

“Already on it,” he said, pulling his phone out of his pocket. He lowered his rifle and started tapping on the screen, apparently texting someone.

 

I turned my attention back to Mason and Skull sitting on the ground in front of me. They didn’t seem to be moving. Whatever their conversation was about, it must have been pretty important. I could still hear them murmuring, though I couldn’t hear a word they were actually saying.

 

“I’ve got a cleaner on the way,” Mick said. “We need to hurry this up, because anyone who’s left alive won’t be for long once he gets here.”

 

“All right, good,” I told him. I’d never been around when a cleaner was working before. I was only a thief. I had never been exposed to anyone else’s job. All I ever did was get in, grab the loot, and get out. I had no real concept of what anyone else did, and I didn’t really care, not at the moment anyway. At that moment, all I cared about was what was going on between Mason and Skull.

 

“Don’t,” Mick warned me again. “Do not interfere.”

 

“Look, I’m the one who got him into this mess,” I argued. “I need to be the one to get him out.” I stopped and turned back to Mick.

 

“That’s where you’re wrong. You may have facilitated it happening this way, but this has been coming for a long, long time, Clara. These two have been at each other’s throats for years,” he said to me.

 

I looked back at the two men on the ground. I could have sworn they hadn’t even moved since Skull had pushed Mason onto his back. For all I knew, he’d already choked Mason out and was just sitting there enjoying his victory over his rival.

 

“Dammit, Mick,” I said, “I need to do this.”

 

“No, what you need to do is let the fight take its course, Clara. Let them duke it out,” Mick continued to argue.

 

But they weren’t duking it out. They were just sitting there. It sounded like they might have been talking, but I wasn’t completely confident in that assessment either. Something wasn’t right, and regardless of what Mick thought I should have been doing, I crept up to the two men to see what the hell was going on.

 

I couldn’t just let a fight I’d started take its course, not without my intervention. Besides, we needed to get out of here before we created a spectacle. In the early morning light, everything was already pretty obvious.

 

There was car sitting completely upright on the passenger side. There were bodies everywhere. Less than a mile back on the highway itself, there was a wrecked motorcycle with a body tangled up in it. There were guns everywhere. There was an SUV parked and running along the side of the interstate, where it had plowed into several motorcycles.

 

To top it off, there were four people with guns hanging out by the wreckage of the car. Two of them were fighting, and the other two were just hanging around with their guns drawn, watching the fight.

 

Once law enforcement arrived, it really was going to be a mess. They were going to find countless guns on the side of the highway, and some of them were fully automatic, which was going to cause some problems for everyone on the street.

 

“Don’t worry,” Mick said, catching me looking around at the scene before us. “Our cleaner will have this handled like it never even happened,” he assured me.

 

“Look, maybe you should get the car ready,” I told him, trying to get him off my back.

 

“The car?” His eyes focused on the car beside us.

 

“No, the SUV. I assume we’re going to take it since they ran over the bikes with it.”

 

He turned and looked at the mangled motorcycles. “Oh, man, Mason isn’t going to be happy about this,” he groaned.

 

“I know,” I added.

 

“No, you have no idea. He was riding the bike Liam gave to him when he became an official member of Storm’s Angels,” Mick told me.

 

“That Liam gave him?” I was taken back to when Mason and Mick had escorted Liam out of HQ when I first arrived. Suddenly, I really felt like shit for stirring things up for him. It seemed I had caused a lot more problems than I had realized by coming here and getting involved with Liam. I needed to fix things, and quick.

 

“Yeah, he didn’t tell you? Liam was the guy who got him in,” Mick said. “That was one of the reasons he kept the old man around. Nobody liked his ass, but Mason stayed pretty loyal to him, all the way to the end.”

 

“To the end? What the hell did I miss, Mick?” I asked.

 

“Well, while you were trying to patch things up with your old man there, we were ambushed at the little hideout our sources sent us to.”

 

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “Don’t tell me.”

 

“No, you need to hear it. It needs to be real, Clara. You need to know what kind of trouble you’ve caused for us. We rode out there maybe twenty deep. We came back with four of us,” he told me. “Sixteen members gone, and you won’t hear about it on the news. The police never even came around to ask questions. They just cleaned it up and moved on. I’m willing to bet someone’s got them on the payroll.”

 

“And Liam?”

 

“He didn’t make it. In fact, Mason and I were standing right in front of him when it happened,” Mick told me.

 

I looked back at the two men struggling with each other on the ground. Again, part of me wondered if walking away from both of them was better than trying to hang around whoever came out on top. I had brought too much down on both of them lately, and I felt like I just needed to leave.

 

“Well, make sure the SUV is ready to go,” I told him.

 

“What are you about to do, Clara?” Mick asked me.

 

“I’m about to speed this process up,” I told him. “This shit has gone on long enough, and regardless of what you think, I’ve caused a lot of it, so I’m going to fix it. We need to be gone before your cleaner gets here, right?”

 

“Oh hell yeah,” he said. “We don’t need to be around when he gets here. Anyone hanging around then, even cops, won’t be making it home.”

 

“So it’s settled,” I told him, nodding to finalize everything and let him know I wasn’t in the mood for arguing anymore. I never needed a cleaner for my messes. I always handled them myself, and I was about to do the same now.

 

Mick lingered a moment longer, giving me a knowing stare, but I could see he also realized there was no talking me down from it now. I was determined to handle this my way. I turned away from him and started walking towards where Skull had Mason on the ground. I wasn’t being careful anymore. I had my gun ready. If Skull noticed me and tried anything, I’d simply shoot him.

 

I didn’t want to take the moment away from Mason, but I felt I had earned it just as much as he had. Skull had threatened my life the whole way up here. He’d told me all about how this was the end of the line for me. The irony of being the one to pull the trigger on him instead would have been just too damn delicious.

 

As I walked up beside them, I saw that at some point Skull had pulled out a gun. He was still holding Mason’s rifle down against his throat, but he was also holding a 9mm handgun right in Mason’s face. Mason didn’t look like he was going to be doing anything about it any time soon. Why hadn’t Skull already pulled the trigger, though? I couldn’t complain that he hadn’t. It was nice to still have Mason with us, but I was still shocked. There was no telling just how long they’d been sitting that way.

 

I raised my rifle up and aimed. First, I aimed at his head. It would have taken one simple shot to put him down, but I didn’t want to take the moment away from Mason. Instead, I moved back around behind him and pointed the gun down at his leg. That would have given Mason the opportunity to get back on top of things and end this standoff. This shit was getting old.

 

I even considered taking the butt of my gun across the back of Skull’s head and just knocking him out so Mason could get away from him and handle it that way, but I felt shooting him in the leg would be more satisfying.

 

My eyes met Mason’s, and part of me melted inside. I could have saved the day right then and there, but I was going to leave it for him to finish.

 

Skull was talking shit over him, but I wasn’t listening. I waited for my cue from Mason. I held the gun up, aimed it at Skull’s leg, and watched Mason’s eyes. I knew he would tell me when the time was right to shoot. I knew he would have something up his sleeve at that point to help himself get the upper hand with Skull again.

 

Skull was completely oblivious to my presence. He was so focused on Mason that he didn’t realize I was standing right on top of him. His training was coming in handy yet again. I had learned a lot from him over the last few years, but it was time to let him go. It was time to leave him for someone with a little more dignity and integrity in his work.

 

I took a deep, quiet breath, steadying my nerves and summoning the strength I needed in order to pull the trigger that one time. Just one shot was all I needed to pull off. The rest was going to be up to Mason.

 

I looked at the back of Skull’s head. One shot to his head would end it all. Shooting his leg to give Mason the chance to get out from underneath him still left a lot of room for error in my book.

 

My eyes met Mason’s green eyes again. He nodded slightly. I returned my eyes to the gun and my target. I readied myself for the shot, the single shot to Skull’s leg.

 

I steadied myself and squeezed.