Chapter 11
Dash
My head was wrecked with what Harley told me. I hated Caesar for the scum that he was. How could he treat a woman like that? A woman like Harley. How could he abandon his own child? Use her as a tool to keep Harley under his boot?
I was seething with rage, yanking at the handcuffs and the pipe.
It mustn’t have been more than a few minutes after Harley was gone that the door opened again. I looked up thinking she was back but I was kidding myself.
Two Hell’s Drifters guys strode in, headed directly towards me. One of them took out a gun, while the other went for my handcuffs.
“Easy there, boys. Aren’t you going to buy me a drink first?” I said with a laugh but they ignored me.
The guy with the gun was pointing it at my head.
“Don’t even think about making a fucking move!” he growled. The other one was freeing me of my cuffs. When they finally came off and my wrists were free, it felt good. My hands could breathe again.
“You know I wouldn’t be anywhere other than here, in the company of such fine men!” I retorted with a laugh and the two of them hauled me up together.
“Keep your hands where I can fucking see them!” the guy with the gun said. I stretched my hands up, just to pacify them and he poked his gun on my back.
“Start walking.”
“Where are we going? Somewhere magical I hope.”
“Walk!” he growled again and I took a step. It was the first step I’d taken in days, but it felt like years. My legs were like jello.
I had no idea where they were taking me. They could be leading me to my death for all I knew.
They walked me out of the room and I saw the guard, Carlos, waiting there with a gun of his own.
“We’re going for a ride,” he chuckled while he chewed a piece of gum. I smiled at him like he’d just said a joke. We walked down the hallway, with the three of them fast on my heels.
Then I saw Harley. She came rushing out of a room and stood at a door, pasting herself to the wall as we were walking by. I caught her eye and I winked, but she looked worried. Maybe she thought I was going to die too. I thought I saw the glint of a tear in her eye.
They led me out of the place, what looked like a bar or a clubhouse or something and there was a van parked outside. It had black tinted windows. These guys definitely didn’t want me to know the location of this place.
“Get in!” one of the guys said and I did what I was told. I jumped into the back and the guy with the gun followed me in and slammed the door shut.
“So, it’s just you and me in here,” I said to him and he glared at me with anger.
“Just shut the fuck up!”
It made me laugh. There was so much anger in them, even though they were the ones who’d kidnapped me.
As the van started up I heard the roar of motorcycles revving up too. It meant that wherever we were going, we were all going together. It was unlikely they were taking me somewhere else to kill me. Much less kill me as a group. So maybe I wasn’t dying today after all.
I was about to say something more but the guy produced a black cloth bag and dumped it over my head so I couldn’t see. Like the tinted windows weren’t enough.
“Fine. I’ll just go to sleep in here then,” I said and he grunted.
We were driving for some time and I tried to keep a mental note of all the turns the van was taking. We could have been driving for close to twenty minutes before it seemed like the van was pulling up somewhere.
We stopped and then I heard voices outside. It seemed like a screaming match going on. And then I heard a voice that I recognized immediately. It was Oz.
I tried to stay still and quiet so I could listen to what was being said. From my guess, from all the back and forth going on outside, a few of my brothers were here. Oz hadn’t come alone. But I could barely hear what was being said. Were they negotiating some sort of deal?
I wanted to jump up and get out of the van and tell them to stop. I didn’t want Oz negotiating anything with these motherfuckers.
But there was a gun pointed at my head now, I could feel the barrel on my skull. Even if I managed to escape the van, I wasn’t going very far. I was sure the Marked Skulls were outnumbered right now.
They were talking demands. I heard words like ‘complete shut down’. Did the Hell’s Drifters and Dark Legion expect my MC to completely shut down? Because they had me in their possession?
I hoped Oz and Lewis weren’t stupid enough to agree to something like that. I was going to find my own way out of here. I had to clench my jaw to stop me from growling out in rage. I needed to do something to interrupt this. But what?
‘No patching into another club’, were some more words that I heard. I recognized that voice to be Caesar’s. What they wanted was complete annihilation of the Marked Skulls.
‘Give us your Cuban contacts. We want to take over that contract’.
Every word I heard was setting me on fire. I wanted to rip someone’s eyeballs out. Never. We were never going to agree to that. I hoped Oz or Lewis didn’t agree to something as fucked up as that.
“Nothing without proof!”
Oz’s voice came through clean and clear to me. He wanted to see me. They weren’t going to agree to anything without seeing me first. There was a loud thud on the van door.
The guy with the gun who had been guarding me grabbed my shoulders and I felt the handcuffs come back on my wrist again. They pierced my swollen and wounded wrists and I gritted my teeth in pain. I still couldn’t see anything, the hood covered everything in blackness.
And then moments later, we were jumping off the back of the van.
I could smell the night breeze. I hadn’t been outside in how long? Days? Weeks? Thankfully they had started feeding me now and giving me water. At least I could stand my own two feet and I still had all my organs and limbs.
Count your blessings, mom always used to say. Now I was counting mine. Meeting Harley; was that a blessing too?
“Hand over the Cuban contract to us.”
It was Caesar doing all the talking for the Hell’s Drifters.
“We need time.” Abe said.
“Well hurry the fuck up if you want your boy to stay alive!”
I couldn’t sense where I was or how many people were around me. All I knew was that the Marked Skulls were now having a showdown with the Hell’s Drifters and whatever measly bits was left of the Dark Legion.
“Take off his hood. We need to make sure it’s him.”
That was Lewis. What was he doing here? The president rarely ever stepped out of T-Bone these days. The others did all the leg work. This must mean something important to him if he was here tonight. I wanted to shout at all of them to go back.
I could hear Caesar chuckling beside me.
“Take it off,” he commanded.
One of the guys yanked the hood off my head and I blinked to adjust my eyes to the surroundings. We were in pretty much utter darkness. Only the headlights of the vans and bikes that were turned on were shedding some light on us.
And then I saw them. All of them. Lewis, Oz, Abe, Girth and Rodeo. They were all there standing together in a row. A few of the others from the Marked Skulls were there too. They were all staring at me like they’d seen a ghost.
“Fancy seeing you here!” I remarked, smiling at them warmly. Usually they sniggered at my stupid jokes, but none of them were smiling tonight. Maybe I looked worse than I thought I did. I knew I barely looked like myself anymore. All that blood. All the bruises and gashes on my face.
“Dash!” It was Oz. My mentor. The man I would have followed into the fire. He took a step in my direction and the guns came out.
The Hell’s Drifters were quick to pull out their guns, but so were the boys from our MC. Within moments, every man except me had a gun pulled out and pointed in the other direction.
Then I felt the cold tip of a gun on my temple. I had my hands cuffed behind me and Caesar was standing close to me.
“One wrong move from any of you and your boy dies right here. Right in front of you!” he shouted.
I looked at Oz, staring straight at him.
“I’m fine. You guys can back off now. I can take care of myself,” I said.
Oz shoved his gun back down his belt and held his hands up.
“No guns. See?” he remarked and the others followed suit.
Now that nobody had any weapons pointed at each other, I could say what I wanted to say.
“And I want you guys to turn around and get the fuck outta here. Don’t make any deal with these assholes.”
I had barely finished the sentence before I felt Caesar’s knee ram into my stomach. I doubled over. Getting the wind knocked right out of me. I felt some blood ooze down the side of my mouth too. It was going to take me more than a second to recover my breath from this one.
“You need to keep him alive, and he needs to be one piece,” I heard Lewis say.
I shook my head.
“No deal!” I said, gasping for air and Caesar grabbed me by my collar.
“If there’s no deal, then this guy is dead tonight. You decide!” He was shouting.
“We will set up a meeting for you with the Cuban contacts,” Lewis said, in a calm voice.
I wanted to shout out to them again to not make any deals but Caesar and the other men were dragging me away already.
“We hand over the contacts and you hand over Dash. We make the exchange happen like that!” Lewis continued to say. It wasn’t going to work. The Hell’s Drifters had no intention of giving me back to my MC. They wanted to drive home a message to Lewis and the others—that they were the ones in control now and for that, they would have to kill me.
After they had taken over our territory and taken over our Cuban clients too.
I was thrown back into the van and the doors slammed behind me. The guy with the gun was watching over me again and he threw the bag on my head.
“Did you have a good time tonight?” he asked, sitting down as the van started up.
“It was okay, nothing to get dressed up for,” I told him, leaning my head back against the wall of the moving van. I’d taken a few more beatings today. My body was battered and I was sure I was going to reach my breaking point soon. How soon?
I needed to figure out a plan first. Of how to get Harley out of this place without her getting hurt.