Pax
We rode like devils, decked out in the Hellriders’ colors—a gingery orange barely disguising a skull lurking in flames, settled against a background of thick black leather. Sometimes it seemed foolish to wear our patches. The easiest way to spot the guilty party was to identify who they belonged to, but tonight, I didn’t care. I wanted those assholes to know that we were coming. I wanted them to see us and be afraid.
I hated to say it, but what they’d done to Kato didn’t have me half as riled up as what they’d tried to do to Jamie. I’d kill them for their attempt, for wrecking that damn car of hers, for the cuts and scrapes I’d found on her body.
They’d made an attempt on her life, and she was only involved because she was a decent person. Because I’d convinced her to take care of Kato instead of following her instinct and taking him to the damn hospital, which would have been better for her but probably would have caused a world of problems for the Hellriders.
Part of me was a big enough asshole to still be grateful for that, no matter how injured Kato was or how much danger Jamie was in. Because that was the set of circumstances that led her to me.
Call me an asshole, but that alone made most of this shit worth it.
As we blazed down the highway, I tried to stay focused. It helped that the sound of the bike beneath me and the wind surrounding me was enough to cut off any sort of conversation that might try to peek in. I tried to utilize the buffer to prevent me from thinking of Jamie—which was fucking impossible.
I’d called Alex again before I finally left. It was under the pretense of checking in with Kato, but really I wanted to know how she was holding up.
I didn’t think Alex was fooled, but I couldn’t really make myself care.
Better they know she’s mine than me having to beat the shit out of every asshole that looks at her, I thought.
I pulled the clutch to shift gears and really opened her up. Travis was beside me, a foot or so back. He followed my lead, revving his own motorcycle. Coming up was the turn that would lead us down Easterly Street. The boys would meet up with us there coming from various roads. We all lived in, more or less, the same area. In fact, I was the farthest out at the moment because I was still staying at that damn house. That being said, no one was grouped in one central location. It was smart, practical and all, so that we wouldn’t all be busted at once, but that wasn’t the reason we were scattered. I hadn’t planned it.
It was more of a natural occurrence. People joined the Hellriders because they lived in town, and we were the motorcycle club in charge. But they didn’t move just because they joined. They stayed in their apartments, their houses, or their trailers—wherever. Like a job, they worked one place and lived another. Just part of it.
But if you lived past our boundaries, you had to move. That was one of our rules because territory lines were important. And I’d worked hard to build them.
When I first started building the Hellriders, it was little more than some local shady deals. It had been me and Marco back then, ironically enough, but when he’d started to go straighter and I dipped into the more risqué stuff, the dynamic between us shifted. We were still friends, and he was still a member of the Hellriders, unless anyone asked. His job meant he couldn’t wear his leathers or openly display his loyalties. And I accepted the necessity of that because I prefer to have someone on the inside to having someone think that a patch made them loyal to me.
Still, when Marco went to the academy, I started getting serious about the club. About starting one at all. Then I met Kato and the idea solidified in my mind. We were wild, road warriors who didn’t give a damn about anything out there. Nothing could stop us. We were invincible. We sold drugs and boosted cars and did whatever we damn well pleased. The cops came for us but could never pin anything concrete to our chests. And when certain influences came to town that we didn’t like, we took care of them. Ran them off and dealt with those who refused to leave.
Which was exactly what was happening now with the Chaos Disciples. They were a bigger pain in my ass than I liked to admit because they weren’t easily scared off.
The Chaos Disciples was run by a man named Diego Huxton, a royal piece of shit that I’d just as soon have never laid eyes on than deal with now. But I didn’t have much choice. He’d come in only a couple of months ago with a big fucking splash. He brought with him only a few guys, but after only two weeks, he had them in droves.
Unlike the Hellriders, the Disciples were less selective. They didn’t care what you did or anything else. To them, you were a body, and bodies meant muscle, even if there were no brains attached. Most of the Disciples were those I had already dismissed as potential candidates. Either they’d failed their initiation or they were just bad news.
But Huxton didn’t care. He’d take any man willing to ride with him and follow his orders—and some that weren’t. In his mind, it was as easy to get rid of a guy as it was to find another. So if one of his men crossed the line, it wasn’t like he had to worry about it. He’d just make sure they didn’t live to see the next day.
Asshole, I thought angrily, leaning forward a little into the wind. He doesn’t know the first fucking thing about being a leader or about running a motorcycle club. It’s about brotherhood, about loyalty. What the fuck is the point of bringing people together if you’re just going to kill them when they step out of line?
I was of the opinion that if you were going to bring people into the club, they needed to be a few things—tough, uncompromising, a little reckless, and a little crazy. But the top on my list was trustworthy, which went right along with loyal. I never wanted to question whether or not my guys were going to rat on me to save their own skin. I may have worried over Kato’s mistrust of Jamie, but that wasn’t a question of being loyal to me, that was an issue of trying to look out for the best interests of the Hellriders. Under normal circumstances, I’d have appreciated that.
But Jamie didn’t make the circumstances normal, I thought with irritation. She made things complicated.
I pursed my lips together, the thought of her distracting. Reminding myself that she was fine, that I’d just spoken to Alex, I tried to focus again on the here and now. Travis was still at my side, and a quick glance in my side mirrors told me that we’d been joined by two others already—Jarren and Clint.
Blinking away the sting of the whipping air, I found myself grateful for the sunglasses I’d donned, if only because they blocked a lot of that wind. Helmets were probably a good idea, but there was something about people seeing your face when you first road in that I liked.
We rode several more miles before the noise of our bikes increased as more of the Hellriders fell in line behind me. We took up the road, and it was probably a good fucking thing that there wasn’t a lot of traffic, not that I’d have let it slow us down. I was a man on a mission. Those asshole Disciples weren’t going to stay here another fucking day.
I wanted them gone.
We would have kept riding straight on through if it weren’t for Chevy up ahead. He was sitting on his idling bike, and he was just far enough ahead that I could see he was stopped and waving. He was trying to flag us down.
My mouth tugged into a frown. Why was he flagging us down? Why wasn’t he joining us? I knew from intel that the Chaos Disciples’ headquarters wasn’t far up ahead now, and it wouldn’t take more than ten, fifteen minutes max to get there. I wasn’t interesting in stopping in for a fucking chat when we were on the edge of war, but I knew that Chevy wasn’t the type to stop us for nothing. If he wasn’t joining in, something was wrong. Very wrong.
I lifted my arm, indicating to those behind me what I was preparing to do, then I slowed my motorcycle. The bike hummed and rumbled until it came to a stop beside Chevy along the side of the road. Behind me, the Hellriders did the same. Their impatient motors idled and grumbled, as eager to go into battle as the men sitting upon them.
“What the fuck?” I demanded, not interested in wasting time on idle chit chat. As the words left my mouth, I noticed his expression. Grim was the only thing to say about it. Not a good sign.
Running his hands through his windblown hair, Chevy looked like the last thing he wanted to do was tell me what was going on. I wasn’t necessarily known for shooting the messenger, but I did have a temper, and if he told me something I didn’t like, there was a good chance that I was going to blow my top. It was unlikely I’d just throw a damn punch in his face—unless it was his fault, whatever his bad news was—but there was a pretty good chance I’d lose it, at the least.
“Fucking spit it out!” I practically shouted at him. There wasn’t time for dallying. I was on a damn mission, and urgency was important to me now. The longer Jamie was in hiding and the longer it took me to retaliate against the Chaos Disciples, the riskier it became.
Chevy flinched but nodded. He cleared his throat. “Alex just called me. Said he couldn’t reach you.”
I froze. Alex was watching Kato and Jamie. He was just a kid, but he was eager to please me and as loyal as they came. Plus, I felt bad sending a barely-legal man into battle with nothing but a chip on his shoulder and the intense need to please.
Now I was wondering if I had fucked this all up. “Alex,” I repeated. It wasn’t a question.
Chevy nodded. He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Yeah. He…uh, he said…Jesus, he was fucking dying, Pax.”
My eyes widened. Dying? “How? What the fuck happened?”
Running a nervous hand through his hair again, Chevy tried to find the words to explain. Or maybe he was looking for the words that were the least likely to send me off into a spiraling rage, a rage I could already feel building. If Alex was dying…
“I don’t know,” he began, then winced and tried again. “I mean, he was dying because he was shot. Took a damn bullet to the gut, can you believe that shit? Just a fucking kid and already writhing on the floor, bleeding out—”
“How in the fuck did Alex get shot?” I demanded, trying to bring Chevy back on track, especially since there were two other people in that house that I was infinitely more concerned about. Callous, maybe but honest.
Honest like the itch to rev up my bike again and ride out—not to the Chaos Disciples but to that house tucked into the woods up there. To rescue Jamie.
Chevy shook his head. “I’m a little fuzzy on the details, but the gist is that they found him. The Chaos Disciples. They came in shooting up the place, and Alex got hit.”
“What about Jamie? Kato?” I could feel my anger building, but alongside it was something else, too. A much scarier feeling: panic, fear. Was Jamie alright? Was she alive? Had the Chaos Disciples managed to kill the very people I was trying so hard to protect?
When Chevy didn’t have an immediate answer—as in half a billionth of a second—I reached across my handlebars to grab him by the collar of his shirt. I jerked him forward, and he stumbled a little until he was half an inch from my face. He must have seen something terrifying in my eyes as I said, “Speak!” because he nodded quickly, eyes wide.
“They’re alive!” he got out as quickly as humanly possible, the words tumbling to get out of his mouth fast enough. “Both of them! The Chaos Disciples came, and Alex got shot, but they wanted the other two alive. Alex said he watched them get dragged out. They left him for dead, which he probably is by now.”
I might mourn later for Alex, but right now, I was too preoccupied with the people who were still alive. Namely, the tall, womanly nurse with her spitfire personality and her smooth skin.
I released Chevy abruptly; he stumbled back a little, rubbing at his neck. I didn’t think I’d choked him, but I also wasn’t really paying attention. My mind was on other things. “Have you heard from them?”
“Kato?”
Making a frustrated sound that was also laced with anger and annoyance, I said, “No, you dumb shit. The Chaos Disciples. Have you heard from them? Have they called in a ransom, left some sort of kindergarten stupid ass threat? What, have they said? Anything?”
Chevy was already shaking his head quickly. “No. At least, not that I’ve heard of. I know all of this only because Alex called me. I was the only one that picked up.”
Anger fired through me, making my whole body practically shake with it. The urge to break Chevy’s face in was so intense, I actually had to take a second and just breathe. “The Chaos Disciples haven’t been in contact with us?” I clarified one last time.
Chevy shook his head. “No, boss. Not that I’ve heard of. I’m not sure them taking Kato was a ransom kind of thing.”
No, it was a taking what is mine kind of thing, I thought darkly.
My eyes narrowed at him. “If the Chaos Disciples didn’t call you and Alex told you they were taken alive, then why the fuck did you waste time flagging me down?” I demanded, my voice rising to an angry crescendo that was enough to make me sound like the fucking devil himself. “We’re already fucking heading to the Goddamned Disciples! We could be there by now!”
The urge to punch him had returned. Because I really was angry. Fucking pissed. Now that I knew what was going on, I wished I could go back and undo it. At the very least, the last ten fucking minutes we’d wasted slowing down, pulling over, and talking about it.
That was ten minutes longer that the Chaos Disciples had Jamie. And Kato, a small voice in my head reminded me. I acknowledged it, but I also acknowledged that he wasn’t my main priority. Yes, I wanted Kato to survive, and I’d try my damnedest to save him, but there was no question that if there was a choice and I could only save one, the only choice was Jamie.
I rationalized that it was about need. Jamie needed me in a way that Kato did not. He’d chosen this life, signed up for the dangers that went with it. But Jamie? That damn woman had stumbled into it like a blind duckling looking for her fucking momma. Instead, she found me, a man hell-bent on seducing her—and succeeding in the best kind of way.
But whatever I wanted from her, I couldn’t shake the feeling of responsibility I had. If she’d never even met me, she never would have gotten into this kind of trouble in the first place.
Hell, I’d even been at the point of getting her out of this life when things went south. The Disciples attacked her, and that was that. Trouble. It didn’t help that I slid inside her, between those long legs of hers, and fucked her until we were both spent.
How the fuck am I going to let her go now?
I revved my bike, preparing to blaze a hot trail of rubber down the road towards the Chaos Disciples’ headquarters. Now more than ever, I needed to get there as fast as I fucking could. How had this managed to fucking happen? I would have to worry about it later, I told myself. Now I just had to get there.
Before I roared out of there, Chevy called to me. “What about Alex?”
I could hear the bikes behind me at various stages of revved and ready. Some were still impatient, maybe more so than before thanks to what happened to not just one, but two of our own. Some, however, seemed to have settled a little.
Glancing behind me, I noted the eyes of my boys on me. They wanted to know what I would do for our own when we died. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a good answer or one anyone was bound to like.
“Alex is already dead,” I said grimly. “We focus, now, on those still alive.”
For a second, Chevy looked pissed, then he deflated like a kid’s birthday balloon. He nodded once. I kicked the bike into gear and then drove off once more. I didn’t glance back to see if Chevy was saddling up to join us or not. At this point, I wasn’t sure if I gave a damn one way or the other. I wanted the extra body, sure, but if his heart wasn’t in it, then I’d rather have him staying at home like the good little housewife he was currently portraying.
I didn’t have to check for the others. I could hear the roar of their motorcycles at my back, and the noise urged me forward. Ride! Ride harder!
The day had started off with urgency, but that urgency had shifted to something closer to desperation. The Chaos Disciples had not only Kato but Jamie, too. God only knew the kinds of things those assholes could be doing to her, to the both of them. And the longer I left them in the cruel hands of the Chaos Disciples, the worse it would be.
I didn’t have the time to dawdle or to linger or even to mourn. I had to get there and save one of my men and the woman that most definitely belonged to me now.
Get there in time, I thought, as close to praying as I ever got. Just get there in fucking time. Ride like the damn wind and hope it’s not too late.