“James?” Dakota said as she looked at her father’s oldest and closest friend.

 

“You’re the guy who hired us,” Joey said, staring equally confused at James.

 

“Yes,” James said, as he pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped the sweat from his brow. “Yes it is me, Dakota.”

 

“What are you doing here?” Dakota asked.

 

“Have you not guessed?” James asked.

 

But Dakota had been rendered speechless. James Hastings on Echo Lane, standing before her in his imperious all black three-piece suit and perfectly shined shoes. Charlie stood next to him, gun still in his hand, smiling a knowing smile.

 

“It was you,” Joey said.

 

“No,” Dakota interrupted. It couldn’t be James Hastings. He was Dakota’s godfather. He had been with her father at the hospital. He had been roommates with her father in college.

 

“Yes, I’m afraid so, dear girl,” James said. “And I am sorry that you’ve been stuck in this crossfire. It is a shame. I meant for your death to be painless.”

 

"I don’t understand –” Dakota started, but she was cut off.

 

“Of course you don’t understand!” James shouted. “You and your father with your heads in the clouds, what have you ever understood! I did all of this! I am smarter than your father will ever be. I found the pathetic group of men called the Soul Stealers and I put them to work. I gave them one hundred thousand dollars to kill your father the first time, but I knew they would fail; a bunch of meth-addicted morons. I told your father to hire Scarred Angels. I couldn’t believe when he did it. A bunch of unqualified bikers driving around one of the richest women in the world, who could ever imagine such a thing. But I recommended it and your father agreed. The attack at the house was another plant, another Soul Stealer idiot. I knew he would fail.

 

After that, after the dust had settled and the investigation was done, I put Charlie in charge of the Soul Stealers and you and your father were both meant to die from natural causes – your father in an accident on his way home from the hospital and you, dear Dakota, were going to tragically fall to your death from a parking garage roof. ‘She was chasing a party,’ the tabloids would say. Everyone would be very embarrassed for you and the investigation would be light, as to save your post-mortem reputation.

 

But I will admit, Scarred Angels has been more impressive than I initially thought. I had expected them to be as dumb as the Soul Stealers. But they’ve been shockingly competent. Not that it matters. You see, we’ve planned everything, Charlie and I-” James stopped speaking as they listened to the voice that was shouting at them through a megaphone.

 

“Release your hostages, if they come to us unharmed, we’ll let you leave. But if you don’t, this will be a firefight you can’t win. Any Soul Stealers who values his life will come out now with their hands up, and we will let you leave, unharmed.” It was Adam. Dakota knew his voice and her heart swelled when she realized that he was going to save her, too.

 

“Never mind them. Where was I? Ah yes, Scarred Angels’s shocking competence. I knew I needed to drive a wedge between you and them, and what better way than by using one of their own as bait? Now there will be a terrible firefight. Scarred Angels and the Soul Stealers will kill each other. Whoever doesn’t die will be arrested, and I will leave. None of them know it was me and none of them ever will. You, my dear Dakota, will sadly die, trapped in the crossfire. What was sweet Dakota Kane doing in Echo Lane in a biker gang’s headquarters? People will ask. But I’ve already started the rumors of a relationship between you and Adam Mendel. People will think you were a foolish girl who got in over her head, which is accurate,” James finished, a disgusting smirk covering his face.

 

“But why?” Dakota asked. “My father loves you like a brother. He trusts you. He made you my godfather. All he’s ever done is supported you. How could you do this to him, to us?”

 

“Do you know what it’s like to not be born into wealth? To be born poor with no connections? Can you even imagine how much harder I had to work than your father? Yes, we were friends in school, and your father introduced me to a great deal of his wealthy friends, and every one of them looked down on me, called my blood weak like we were living in a medieval village. Each one of them has started a business and failed, most of them several times, each time their daddies would open their checkbooks and bail them out. Well I don’t have a rich father who can solve all of my problems for me; I’ve had to work, to scrape, for everything I have!

 

Tritronic Electrics was my dream! I started the money; I leveraged everything I had for it. I worked to the bone and it should have worked. It should have worked! I did everything right, everything! And still it was failing. Your father came to me and offered to buy me out of the company. He came to me as if it was a favor, and like I was a drowning man and he had come with a lifeboat. It killed me inside, Dakota. But I took the offer, and what did you dear old dad do next? He turned the Tritonic Electrics around, miraculously. Now my company is just another jewel in his crown.”

 

“He made you rich with that offer. He saved your company,” Dakota said.

 

“He saved it for himself! And he made me rich, but my riches were nothing compared to his. He just waved his hand and spent his ancestors’ money and expected me to kiss his boot in thanks.”

 

“He never wanted you to kiss his boot,” Dakota spit. “He was trying to help you-” But she was cut off as bullets were fired on the other side of the door and men were shouting to each other. For a moment in the room, no one moved, all staring at the door, wondering who was winning, and who was losing.

 

But so quickly, the noise was over.

 

“What’s the plan if the Soul Stealers lose?” James whispered to Charlie. He had his back to the other man, and was staring at the door.

 

“Yeah,” Charlie said, raising his gun and aiming it at the back of James' head, “about that.”

 

“No!” Dakota screamed and she launched herself at Charlie, knocking the man over. But it didn’t matter; a single shot had been fired. It had slammed James Hastings forward and splintered the door. Dakota turned and saw her godfather slump down face-first into a puddle of blood.

 

“Get off me, bitch,” Charlie said, shoving Dakota and pointing the gun at her.

 

Dakota scrambled back, and that was when Joey stood and pulling a short blade from inside his pocket, jamming it into the other man’s side and grabbing the gun in one swift motion. Charlie screamed out in pain and fell to the floor, leaving Joey standing over him with a thin blade in his left hand.

 

“Is it over?” Dakota asked, staring stunned at the violence and bloodshed around them.

 

“Yeah, it’s over,” Joey said as the white door was kicked in, and Adam ran into the room, his gun drawn.