Chapter Twelve
Ozzy
Sunlight streaming through the shades lifts my eyelids, pulling me out of the deepest sleep I’ve had in years. Every part of me is sublimely relaxed. Every part of me is content. Because she’s in my arms. Soft, smooth skin and a peaceful expression on her face. The gentle sun highlights the freckles on her cheeks. What a beauty she is.
She’s a woman worth fighting for.
Tough, smart, driven, and drop-dead gorgeous.
She’s better than I could have ever dreamed of. Sure, I’ve had my share of women — some hot, some smart, some fun — but she puts them all to shame.
I stay there, awake, holding her, rolling my present situation around in my brain. This case means a lot to her — more than I’d even realized — but what she’s asking of me might be more than I’m able to give. The Kings are my family, we live and die for one another. My brothers and sisters in the club hold my loyalty and my life.
They made me who I am today.
But Maria just might hold my heart.
It’s a fucking sore situation to be in.
Just thinking about it stiffens my spine and gets my blood boiling. How can I be put in a place to choose between my family or her? What kind of man am I, that I’m even allowing myself to consider someone above my club? There should be no question.
I should track this man down, put a bullet in his brain, and be done with it.
But I can’t. It’s not that simple, though I want it to be. And I need to find a way to rise to this challenge like an enforcer should.
I stay there, silent but raging in my heart.
Until that beautiful woman opens her eyes and smiles at me and chases away all my other thoughts. “Good morning.”
That gentle lift of her lips, the warmth of her voice — it’s enough to make me question everything.
“Morning,” I say, quickly.
I stand up, turn away, head towards the kettle and flip the switch to get it boiling. If she’s able to get too good of a look at me at this moment, she’ll know I’m truly wavering — she’ll pounce and she’ll push and pull and I don’t know how much I can resist her.
There’s still the deadline hanging over my head — today’s the last day I have to figure this shit out before we call Gunney. Before he’ll say what I know he’s going to say: finish the mission. Kill your target.
“Coffee?” I say.
“Of course.”
I keep my head down while making it. Then I bring our cups back to the bed and settle in next to her, my eyes on my coffee cup and my hand resting on her leg. Even though she’s making me question so much about who I am and where my loyalties are, I can’t keep my hands off her.
This was supposed to be a simple job: show up, kill a rat, go home.
Why does this shit have to be so complicated?
She takes her coffee in silence, eyes half-closed, small smile still on her face, and I’m grateful for the quiet. I need the time to stew things over and figure out just how the hell to handle this situation and where my loyalties lie.
Maria slides out of bed, every lithe inch of her gorgeous in the soft morning light. Her beauty is the worst kind of poison to my heart.
“Have you thought any more about what I asked?” she says, walking over to the closet, brown eyes staring at me through a bed-headed mess of red hair. It’s enough to cut me through pieces.
I should’ve known she wouldn’t avoid the question. She’s too smart not to press an advantage when she has it.
“I can give you some time,” I say. Somehow I manage to make my voice sound like I actually believe it. “I can’t promise much time. But I can give you a chance to steer Ardoin in the right direction.”
When the day comes, how the hell am I going to convince Gunney to wait?
She smiles. Wider, brighter.
That’s my motivation — that look.
I’ll have to find a way.
“Thank you,” she says. “I know it’s a lot. That it’s a huge risk. But you can trust me. I can do this.”
Can I?
“There aren’t many people I trust as much as you. And nobody who isn’t an old lady or a member of the club,” I say. Which is true. She’s done a lot for the club — without her help, Bear probably wouldn’t have custody of Abigail, for one thing, and, for another, there’s a good chance the Iron Devils would’ve wiped us all out.
She looks at me, her eyes piercing and perceptive. “Look, I know you have your doubts. That’s fair. But I have a stake in this, too. Don’t forget, my best friend is Nash’s old lady. I want this to work as much as you do.”
I nod. “You’ve earned it. I’ll see what I can do to get the club to keep it’s distance.”
“Again: thank you.”
I almost feel good about my decision and it’s all thanks to the smile on her face. The entire morning, she seems lighter and more vibrant. Over breakfast, she manages to crack a few jokes and acts more like the Maria that I remember — the Maria that first knocked me back on my heels when I saw her in the clubhouse all those months ago.
She kisses me as we part ways for the day about a block from the US Attorneys office. It’s the kind of kiss that, no matter what happens, I’ll remember for the rest of my life.
I watch her saunter up the steps of the building, lively and confident — everything that drives me wild, everything that makes me feel like a King when I’m with her — and it isn’t until the door shuts behind her that I’m left alone with my thoughts and the nagging question of how I’m going to make the Kings back off killing the man who represents a threat to every single member of the club.
How do I convince them to trust her to pull this off, when I’m not even sure that I do?
* * * * *
I knock hard against the door to the no-questions motel room that I’m sort-of sharing with Preacher. Whatever he’s up to — drinking, drugs, watching that show of his — I want to give him a chance to get ready before I barge in.
After a tick, I open the door and see he’s stretched out on his bed, book in hand, TV blaring pointlessly in the background. That show is still on. Phil’s in the corner, still tied up, blindfolded, and gagged, but looking otherwise content.
“It’s nearly time, brother,” Preacher says as soon as I enter. “Tomorrow morning, we make the call.”
“I still have a day,” I point out. “And I’m working on it with Maria. You know this thing is a lot more complicated than just point and shoot.”
“You think Gunney is going to accept ‘um, it’s really difficult’ as a reason for us taking so long?”
“I reckon he’ll understand needing to get proper intelligence and reconnaissance or whatever they call it before completing a difficult mission.”
I don’t feel great lying to a brother, telling him that I’m still working on a plan to kill David, but it’s the only way. Preacher is so focused on the original goal right now that, if I told him things had changed — that I’d made a deal that might keep David alive in exchange for his silence — I doubt he’d take it well.
I need to ease him into this, even if that includes lying to him.
“You better hope so, brother. He might decide to send Bear and a few other brothers out here. Turn this little stealth operation into a full-on assault.”
I shake my head.
“He’s too smart for that. This mission has to happen under the radar. And that’s what I’m doing with Maria. Working with someone on the inside. Remember, the only way our target sees the light of day is when he’s under police escort on his way to the attorneys office. Otherwise, he’s untouchable.”
“So we hit him while he’s on the way. Seems pretty simple to me. What’s with the delay? Is this all because you’re not done fucking her? You’re not putting pussy over the club, are you?”
I fight back the urge to punch him. I can’t stand how stubborn he is, and how he’s talking about Maria. I have to be clever. I have to divert him from wanting to call Gunney. I have to stall until he comes to accept that our original mission objective needs to change.
“It’s not that, brother. How much heat would we get if we attacked some police in broad daylight? The club wouldn’t survive the backlash. We gotta be smart.”
“You keep saying that, but our time is just ticking away. How long until he talks? How long until he mentions our club? What then?” He says, refusing to ease up.
“I’m working on that, too. Maria’s going to keep him from mentioning us.”
“And you trust her to do that?” he says, eyebrow raised.
“She’s smart, brother. And she’s saved our asses before.”
He shrugs, turns his attention back to his book. “That’s a big risk to take. Seems to me this problem is best solved with a bullet.”
I sigh, racking my brain for some way to turn his doubts into confidence. I can’t have him going behind my back and calling Gunney on his own.
I grin. I have an idea.
“Listen, brother, you remember in one of the early seasons of True Blood, when that badass viking vampire and the mopey southern one were taking on that crazy gay vampire king?”
He sits up, suddenly more interested. “Yeah, man. That’s probably my second favorite season. When that crazy vampire king ripped out that guy’s spine on live TV, man, it was fucking sweet.”
“Yeah, and you remember how they beat him? They had outwit him. They took that whole huge gamble in giving him that faerie blood and then the viking vampire took him outside in the sunlight and risked his life so that, when the blood wore off, the sunlight would kill him.”
I’ll still never understand how a man like Preacher enjoys this weird shit.
“Fuck yeah I do,” he says. “But they didn’t kill him. Eric saw the ghost of his Gaelic vampire mentor and decided to spare the vampire king’s life.”
I pause, searching for a counter argument.
How could I have forgotten about the Gaelic vampire ghost?
“Yeah, but they still kicked his ass. And then they buried him in cement. So their plan still worked, right?”
“Well, yeah. For a while, at least.”
“So, they beat the odds by being smart,” I say. “You and me are like the viking vampire and the mopey vampire. Our gay vampire king is this David Ardoin guy and the police guarding him. They’re better armed, they’ve got numbers. If we’re going to beat him, we’re going to have to be a little unorthodox.”
Preacher nods. “Obviously, in this scenario, I’m the viking vampire.”
“Fuck no, bro. I don’t want to be the whiny one,” I say. “Let’s just say that we’re both the viking dude.”
“Sounds reasonable enough to me.”
“Then let’s put our trust in Maria, that she can steer things right. Maybe she can fix this all for us and we won’t even have to kill him. We’ll do this the smart way.”
He nods. “Fine. We’ll do this your way. For now.”
* * * * *
We while away the morning, killing time, making small talk with Phil for the short time each day we untie him. Every second that passes, I’m willing Maria to figure out a way to keep her client in line. I’m hoping that I’ll see her at the end of this day, and she’ll have some solid course of action laid out with her client that’ll lead to things working out for the both of us.
The afternoon goes by with strategizing with Preacher.
I need to keep him busy. I need to keep him thinking that we’re still preparing to kill David should all else fail. And I need the distraction, too.
Preacher and I cruise the highway connecting Missoula with the state prison forty miles east of town where they’re holding David Ardoin, looking for good ambush points and places to get away should shit go sideways.
It’s a long stretch of road through heaps of hills and mountains that eventually ends in a long flat plain. There’s plenty of good choke points, a few side roads that leave the main highway and go wandering through the mountains to tiny towns and forgotten mines; roads made for losing pursuit.
The more we uncover about the place, the more I see the gears working in Preacher’s head — ideas about ambushes, escapes, and just how to pull this thing off. And I share his thoughts — the part of me that is loyal to the club realizing that this highway is perfect for our mission.
We can do this.
It has to be a sign. If Maria doesn’t come through — and soon — we’ll put a bullet in David’s head and be done with it.
One way or another, we’re ending this threat to our club.