Chapter Four
“What do you mean you’re leaving?”
Slade kept stuffing his personal belongings into his saddle bag. “I’m heading back to Rider Pass.”
“I thought you left that club when you decided to come back to the family.”
“You never leave the club, Normandy,” he said. “The V.P. got sideswiped by a tractor trailer and didn’t make it.”
“So you’re just going back for a funeral?”
What the hell was he supposed to tell her? That her father ordered him to get the hell out of town? That he was good enough to run dope but wasn’t good enough to lay his hands on her? He knew Normandy better than she knew herself. He wouldn’t stand in the way of her place in the DiLuca family.
“I’m going back to take his place. Kix needs me.”
“I need you,” she stressed. “But I can see you’re set on going. I won’t take you back.”
“I know.”
Consciousness came back abruptly. Slade moaned and rolled out of the uncomfortable position sprawled on the floor. An agonizing pain shot through his side and he reached down to touch the area, only to encounter a wet, sticky spot. Bringing his hand back up to inspect it, he saw a bright red stain coating his fingertips.
“Shit,” he muttered.
The door banged open again, and thinking the gunmen had come back, he made to grab his gun again, only to feel an empty holster. A second later, Whiskey appeared in the kitchenette doorway.
“Oh, my God!” Whiskey cried. He had a blood running from his nose and a swollen left eye that was quickly turning black. “I got ambushed in the stock room, man. I think we were being watched.”
“You think?” Slade snarled, wincing. He held his side as he pushed to his feet. “God damn it.”
“Wait, where’s Normandy?” Whiskey asked.
“They fucking took her.”
“They? I only remember one man clocking me.”
“There were two men,” he said, looking around. “Where’s my phone? Jesus, Whiskey, you gotta get this shit cleaned up. No one needs this much crap!”
“Don’t bad mouth my home! Here’s your phone.” He scooped it up from a corner and handed it to him. “Let me get you a towel. You’re bleeding all over my floor.”
“I’m only touching your towel if it’s been bleached!” As Whiskey waved off his comment, he dialed Kix’s number. When he picked up, Slade didn’t even wait to hear a greeting. “We were hit! They took her, Kix, and I’m shot. The bullet is still in me. Fucking hurts.”
“Whoa, slow down,” Kix replied. “What do you mean you were hit? And took who?”
Slade took a deep breath and bent over to relieve some of the pressure on his side. “Normandy.”
“Are you saying she’s alive?”
“Yeah. She hid and I found her, but we were attacked. They must have followed me when I drove by her house earlier.”
“Who followed?”
“I don’t know. Whoever killed her father and brothers. I need to get this bullet out of me and go find out who these bastards are.”
“Jesus. Where are you?”
“East St. Louis. A bar called Puddin’s. I’m sure Mac could find it easy.”
“Hold on. For a few minutes, Slade heard muffled sounds as Kix barked out questions. “Slade, you there?”
“Yeah. Hurtin’ but here.”
“Okay, I’ve got someone on their way to you.”
“Who?”
“Doctor friend of my brother. She’ll be there soon. Can you hold on?”
“I’m not fucking dying, okay? Just hurts and I’m bleeding all over the place.”
Just then Whiskey came back with a towel. Slade took one look at it and shook his head.
“Do you want us to come to you?”
Slade thought quickly. It was about three hours from Rider Pass to St. Louis, and he was currently in Illinois. He didn’t want to wait to go after the motherfuckers, but he needed to know who exactly he was fighting.
“I need any intel on what happened to Tony DiLuca and his sons. I need to know who it was. Now, this kind of attack couldn’t be orchestrated alone, so there should be chatter.”
“I’ll have Mac hack into every system until he finds out who killed them,” Kix assured him.
“Because who it was probably has Normandy.”
Kix hesitated for a moment. “Are you sure she’s alive?”
Slade rejected the thought that he’d found her only to lose her again. “Yes, because they didn’t kill her, they took her. Someone wants the last DiLuca, although I don’t know why.”
“All right,” Kix said. “If she’s out there, we’ll find her. Take it easy until the doctor shows up. She knows your number.”
Slade hung up and slumped against the wall.
“Dude, you’re still bleeding on my floor.”
Slade threw him a dark look and grabbed a chair, dumping the garbage cluttered on it to the ground. He sat gingerly and winced as his wound pulled.
“Get me paper towels,” he said.
Whiskey went to one pile of stuff and rooted through it until he came up with a brand new still-in-the-plastic roll of paper towels. He handed it to Slade who opened it and wadded up a lot of it to stuff against his side.
“Do you happen to have any peroxide or something?”
“I got alcohol,” Whiskey replied. “Lots of it downstairs.”
“How Old West of you. Who’s running the bar?”
“No one. When the goon came to beat me up, they ran everyone out.”
Slade stood back up, swaying a little from pain, but mainly from blood loss. “Come on, let’s wait downstairs. The alcohol can disinfect the place where the doc is going to have to dig this bullet out of me.”