CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Bear
I knew the moment Thia registered we weren’t alone because her legs tensed around my waist. I turned around to face the threat and reached behind me, pushing her knees back together, keeping as much of her hidden behind me that I could. “Stay quiet,” I ordered.
I reached in the waistband of my pants for my gun, but I’d barely brushed the handle when the first gunman emerged from the bushes wearing a Bastards cut.
“I don’t fucking think so, Bear,” Mono said, with a big fat grin on his big fat face. “Hands off the fucking gun or I start firing now and chances are if I do that, that pretty little thang behind you is gonna be just as full of bullet holes as you’re gonna be.” He came to a stop about ten feet in front of us.
I released my gun and grabbed my lighter instead. “Just grabbing my smokes, man,” I said, lighting another cigarette. “You can tell Harris to come out of the fucking bushes,” I said pointing to the brush. “I know the Irish Twins never travel alone and besides, I can see the motherfucker’s shining bald ass head from here.” Ti’s knees shook against my back and I push back against her to ease her nerves, but her shaking only intensified.
Harris emerged from the brush with the same stupid grin on his red bearded face and joined his pseudo brother, his pistol raised as he approached.
“Chop put you dumb fucks on me? I thought he’d at least send someone with some fucking brains, but he sends the fucking twins to do his dirty work?”
Mono and Harris joined the MC around the same time I was patched in. The name ‘Irish Twins’ has nothing to do with them looking alike because they weren’t related and aside from their bald heads and red beards they couldn’t have looked more different. Mono was around six feet and stocky, while Harris stood around six five, but was much leaner. It was their personalities that were identical, from the ear bleeding music they were always blasting from their rooms at the club, to the dark and bitter beer that they chugged for breakfast.
Mono spit his dip onto the ground and smiled, his teeth coated in black tar. “You weren’t all that hard to find you know, you could have tried harder to run.”
I scoffed and took a drag of my cigarette. “I’ve been in town for weeks. I was right under your nose the entire time you stupid fucks.”
Harris chimed in. “Easier to take you out when King isn’t up your ass, although I’d love to take that pussy out as civilian collateral damage.”
“Only a handful of places you could go. Even had eyes on that fucking old lady you liked so much.”
Grace.
“Surprised you two fucking morons even found me,” I said. “You two can’t find your fucking cocks half the time. There is no way you tracked me on your own.” Mono sneered and came forward until we were almost chest to chest. There were two trackers the MC used and I hoped to God that it was Gus because if it was Rage there was no way I’d survive the next few minutes.
Rage never missed a target.
Never.
“You’re about to die motherfucker,” he spat. “If you shut your fucking mouth and take your death like a man then maybe we won’t kill the pretty little thing behind you when we’re done playing with her.”
“You won’t fucking touch her,” I warned.
“Step to the side or you’ll die watching Mono face fuck her before we put a knife in her throat,” Harris said, moving to the side of the picnic table to get a look at Thia. He licked his lips and sucked on his upper teeth.
“No,” I growled, but then I felt a tug in the back waistband of my pants.
No. You stupid fucking girl. Don’t.
This is all my fault. Ti was going to die all because I lied to her when she was a kid. Because I had to keep her in my life once she crashed her way into it.
It was because of me that we were both going to die.
Mono and Harris didn’t seem to notice what Ti was up to and she didn’t seem to get my telepathic message so when I felt a final tug, freeing my gun I knew it was now or never. We would survive because we had to survive.
Because Ti had to survive.
No. Matter. Fucking. What.
“I’m moving I’m moving,” I said. Taking one wide side step toward Harris, obstructing his view of Ti.
Ti fired.
I lunged for Harris and luckily I’d already had my hand on his gun and was wrestling for it when it went off while aimed at the sky. I fell on top of him and the second I was able to get the gun from his hand I turned it on him, putting a bullet into his temple.
I turned back around and expected to see Mono laid out but he wasn’t on the ground. He was standing up. Blood was pumping out of his shoulder. His good arm was wrapped around Thia, his knife at her throat. “What the fuck did you just do!” Mono roared, his knife bit into her skin and trickles of blood spilled down her neck.
“Let her go or I’ll blow your fucking head off,” I warned, turning my gun on him. It was a bluff and he knew it. I didn’t have a clear shot. There was no way I could shoot him without risking hitting Ti as well.
Mono laughed low and evil. “I don’t fucking care.” He shrugged and locked eyes with me. “Eye for an eye and all.” Mono tightened his grip on Ti and white knuckled his knife as he began to drag it across her throat. I lunged for them, but there was no way I was going to be able to reach them in time.
“Nooooooooooo!”
A shot rang out and Mono’s eyes rolled back in his head and the side of his neck exploded. His stare went blank as he released Ti and fell sideways into the dirt.
“Ti!” I said, running for her and scooping her up off of the ground.
“I’m okay?” she asked like it was a question and not a statement. I examined where the blood was dripping from her neck. The slice was about a half of an inch wide. “It’s not deep.” I sighed in relief. Maybe a stitch or two.
Thank fucking God.
“Who shot him?” Ti asked pointing to Mono as I picked her up and held her tightly to my chest. Stepping over Mono’s body I carried her back to the table and set her down to examine her for further injuries. “Who?” Thia asked again, scanning the brush for more Bastards.
I didn’t need to look around, because I knew exactly who shot Mono.
“That would be me.” A familiar voice said with a slight Spanish accent. I turned around to find myself face to face with Gus. “And you’re fucking welcome.”
* * *
Thia
It was the first time I’d seen Gus since he’d saved me from Chop that night. “Such a waste,” he said, staring down at the two lifeless bodies of who Bear had called Mono and Harris. Gus had dragged one of them next to the other so that they were now lying side by side on their backs.
Bear continued to search my body for wounds that weren’t there and I tried to catch my breath.
“Hi. I’m Gus,” Gus said, never taking his eyes off the bodies. His tone was flat and even and he spoke in a volume a few notches down the volume dial than most people did.
“I remember you,” I said and Gus simply nodded.
“I was hoping they used you to track and not Rage,” Bear said after finally being satisfied that I wasn’t bleeding from anywhere besides the small wound on my neck. He turned to me and pushed the hair off my face, resting his forehead on mine.
“That was a stupid move,” he said.
“Bear,” I started to argue.
“Let me finish,” he interrupted. “It was a stupid move that I’m glad you fucking made or we’d both be dead right now.” He pulled back and pulled a joint out of his pocket. He didn’t light it instead he passed both the joint and lighter to Gus who reached behind him to take it from Bear, his eyes still glued on the bodies while he lit it and took a deep drag.
Gus knelt down next to the bikers and surprised me when he ran his index finger across Mono’s bloody face, leaving a white trail down his cheek through the sticky red. He stood back up and held the bloody finger under his nose. Closing his eyes he inhaled the blood like he was sniffing a fine wine. “Shame,” he repeated, opening his eyes. He used a rag from his back pocket to wipe the blood from his finger.
On the night Gus saved me from the MC he was just a shadow, no face, no body. A distant memory of an explosion and a ride in a van.
Gus was now a living breathing person with olive skin and dark hair just long enough on the top to brush forward. Tiny pointed bangs hung high on his forehead. His height fell somewhere in the middle of the height difference between my 5’4” and Bear’s six foot something. He wasn’t wearing a cut, just an untucked navy blue and white flannel shirt and light jeans with yellow work boots. He wasn’t attractive, especially not in the same way Bear was. Gus’s pudgy cheeks, which were coated with dark hair that was a few hours over a five o’clock shadow, would suggest he was heavier than his medium build. An ornate tattoo decorated his right temple. The whites of his eyes seemed brighter than most against the blackness of his large pupils, which bulged out of his head when he spoke.
I was acutely aware that he didn’t blink often and found myself staring at his eyes trying to catch him in the act.
“They should’ve been on plastic with a dental bar in their mouths. I would have taken my time and started from the back. The back is a good place to start when pulling teeth. Molars are the most painful and the hardest to extract. They are also the bloodiest and when the blood drips down their throats they choke on it and choking increases the fear. You can smell it in the air.” He shook his head and looked up at Bear. “It would have been beautiful.”
“I’m sure it would have been, man,” Bear said, leaning back against the table, obviously used to Gus’s oddities.
“You owe me,” Gus said, coming to stand in front of us “Two.” He added, holding up two fingers, his voice never rising or falling with his words.
“Two,” Bear agreed. “With the shit storm I have coming my way I don’t think that will be a problem.”
Gus turned to me and I held out my hand. “We were never properly introduced. I’m Thia,” I said, clearing my throat to remove any remnant of nervousness from my voice. Gus looked down at my hand and jumped back like I was holding out a spider.
Bear put his hand on my forearm and gently pushed it down. “Gus doesn’t shake hands,” Bear said, as Gus shook his head frantically from side to side, his fists curled up into balls under his chin as he cowered away from me.
“You’re afraid of ME? I just saw you kill a guy then rub your finger in his blood.” I pointed out.
Gus unfolded his arms from himself when he saw I was no longer holding out my offending hand and stood up, smoothing down his already smooth shirt. “Blood is clean. Blood is beautiful. Blood is life and watching that life drain out and fade away is a gift I like to give myself as often as possible. Hands are dirty. So dirty. Like motel rooms.” He rambled, gagging when he mentioned ‘motel rooms,’ turning his mouth into the crook of his elbow. He took a deep breath, fixing within himself whatever it was that I had broken by trying to shake his hand. “Did you know that most motel rooms are covered in feces and semen?” Gus asked out of nowhere. “And I’m not talking about the bed. Depending on the age of the motel and the number of available rooms and the amount of parking spaces, at one time or another every single surface had been covered by either semen or feces or both.”
“Well hello to you too, Gus,” Bear said with a laugh.
“It’s true,” Gus said, turning to Bear. “And it’s not funny. Now you owe me three.” Gus took another drag of the joint and passed it back to Bear who held it between his lips and inhaled until the red ember on the tip dripped with ash.
He spoke as he exhaled. “I know it’s not funny man. What’s also not funny is that if it wasn’t for Ti grabbing my gun and you showing up that we’d be a couple of corpses stacked on your pile right now.”
“I keep my promises,” Gus said, “You saved my life.”
“Never doubted you, brother, but you didn’t have to take off your cut for me. I would never have asked you that,” Bear said, gesturing to Gus’s cut-free attire.
“I didn’t take it off for you. I took it off for me.”
“Why?” I chimed in.
“Because I found out who the mole is.”
“What mole?” I asked.
“The one who fed intel to Isaac and then to Eli. The one who tried to have me killed twice, but still can’t seem to get the fucking job done,” Bear informed me. “But it doesn’t matter now, because Chop wants to kill me himself.”
“Three times,” Gus corrected.
“What?” Bear asked, his brows creasing with confusion.
“Three times,” Gus said. “The first time was when he let Isaac into the club when he knew what Isaac’s plans were. The second time was when he told Eli where you were. The third time was today, right now.”
Bear sat there silently and took another drag of the joint, rubbing his temples with his thumb. “Fuuuuuuccck!” he roared, standing up on top of the table.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “What does you leaving the MC and the mole have anything to do with one another…” I stopped when the realization hit.
Bear looked down at me and nodded.
“The mole is…” I started, but stopped as it all sank in.
Bear growled and finished my sentence.
“My fucking old man.”
Gus nodded. “Chop. Chop is the mole.”
* * *
Thia
So much for normal.