The club roared out of the old farmhouse in a double line, Tex and Take at the head, the rest of the club snaking behind them. Having Jessie pressed against his spine, holding tight to his body felt better than he’d anticipated. She’d dressed in an old pair of his jeans, which looked absolutely awful on her, worn all the wrong way for her curves and lines, but she wouldn’t get blood on her going out clothes. And he was quite sure there would be blood on his hands before the end of the night.
He waited for the disassociation that came with that thought. The sure knowledge that he was a monster, that he had always been a monster, and that this time, once he let out the darkness, he’d lose the ability to bottle it up again. But that fear and panic didn’t come. Sure, the meds on board were helping keep his heartbeat steady, but it was the firm grasp of the woman’s hands around his waist that really let him feel sure. He had something to hold onto. That therapist the VA had sent him to twice would probably tut-tut at the idea that a man should find strength in a woman, would probably say something useless about how a man should find strength in his duty rather than people around him. After all, the people around him could choose to leave.
And maybe clinging to Jessie couldn’t be a forever solution. But for tonight, it was enough. Hearing her say she wanted him to stay close? That was enough. Because Jessie wasn’t looking to him to fix her problems—something he’d been trying to do for her since he’d rolled into town. She wanted to be a partner to him in this. And if she was willing to ride into hell with him to avenge her brother, if she was willing to take on nightmares and blood and gunshots, then he was sure she’d be with him for panic attacks and insecurity and whatever else was on the horizon for them.
Her hands tightened against his middle, and something warm began to blossom there, where he thought there could be only loneliness and fear for the rest of eternity. He let himself settle into the sensation and, maybe just a little, begin to believe in it.
And then they were on the highway, and he put his focus forward, calling to mind the layout of the Racketeer’s compound and planning, in as much detail as he could, what they would do once they arrived. He ran every scenario he could think of as the club tore up the pavement behind him. They were leaning on him, trusting in him, just as his men had overseas. He would lead them as best as he could.
The Racketeer’s clubhouse was north of town, and they were waiting for him and the club to show up. Once they’d turned off the highway and ridden down the twisting desert roads that led to the abandoned buildings that had been repurposed into a clubhouse and a meth lab, he saw a handful of bikes shining under an overhead halogen light. It was a disturbing picture, something straight out of a horror movie. His guts twisted up as they road closer, idling down before dropping into neutral, balancing the bikes in the dust cloud.
It was Pedey and Mac standing there, astride their bikes. Tex stopped the Sons just outside the circle of light thrown by the streetlight. Jessie dismounted carefully, and Tex slid off after her, touching her hand with just one fingertip. She nodded, somehow understanding the wordless communication. She was to stay here, with the bikes, with the Sons ready to throw down for her, because she was both his, and one of them. This was his lion’s den to walk into. If things went to shit, well, she’d be in the mess of it with the rest of them. He trusted the others to keep her safe if they could. He was connected to all of them, and could feel them moving behind him as clearly as he could feel his fingers testing the air around him for signs that he was about to be betrayed.
He didn’t like that Pedey and Mac were out front. If Mac had agreed to broker some kind of wergild or peace, that would be one thing, but he’d shut Tex down entirely over the phone. The Sons had moved with the thought that they might get the drop on the Racketeer’s, but Mac apparently knew them better than they’d thought.
Tex carefully studied the older man’s face; was there a narrowness around his eyes? Was he concerned at the number of Sons who had ridden in the middle of the night? Maybe, maybe not. Maybe he had men hidden in every bush and tree, behind the wall, ready to fire. Maybe it was just him and Pedey, no one else.
He forced himself to take a long, slow breath, steadying himself. He kept his body relaxed, ready to fight. He knew both of these men primarily by reputation. He was ready to fight them without question, and he was ready to kill them if he needed to, but if there were another option, he would prefer to spare life if it meant no one else would be hurt.
Pedey wasn’t going to walk away from this conflict, though. Of that he was sure. Whether or not Mac rode again? Well, that would be up to Mac.
His boots sounded loud against the hard-packed dirt road. Little puffs of dust kicked up from his toes and heels. In full daylight, he would have looked like a modern cowboy, his iron horse steady and waiting behind him. He paced slowly towards the two men, Take right at his side, matching him stride for stride. They stopped together, about five quick paces from Mac and Tex. Tex fell into a parade rest pose without thinking about it; when he noticed the shape his body had taken, he couldn’t help but laugh. It conveniently put his gun hand close to his holster, and that wasn’t a bad thing.
“There’s blood on your hands,” Tex said, directly to Mac. It was an act of intense disrespect; he would have expected any challenger to the Sons to talk through him. He was saying to Pedey that Mac had thrown him to the wolves, gambling that Mac hadn’t given him the full story about why the two of them were idling out here in the dead of night.
He wasn’t sure what he expected from Pedey, but laughter was absolutely not on the list. The man threw back his head and howled. “It took you long enough to fucking notice, you piece of shit.”
Take bristled next to him, but Tex didn’t bother to reassure him. He was far too busy controlling his own reaction. He wanted to leap for the man’s throat, choke the life out of him until his eyes went dark. But he needed to conduct this business properly. He didn’t want to put Castello into the middle of an all-out war. Jessie, her family, and her friends, didn’t deserve that. He’d come here to be a protector, not a destroyer.
“It’s time for you to answer for what you’ve done,” Tex said, once he trusted his tone to stay relatively level.
Pedey stood up off his bike and paced forward. Mac grabbed the sleeve of his leather jacket, and Pedey shook him loose. That raised Tex’s eyebrow; he would not have allowed such disorder, not in a situation like this. Interesting. Pedey circled him and Take; Tex wondered if he was fancying himself some kind of drill sergeant. But Pedey didn’t move like a military man. He didn’t have the regular gate of someone who has been taught to march and drill, nor did he have the liquid motions of someone who’d been trained for special ops. He moved jerkily, like he was trying to cover up his nervousness. Again: interesting.
“Like you don’t have blood on your hands. How many innocent people did you kill when you were over? More than I ever have here.” Pedey spat the words.
Tex wondered where the anger came from. He wasn’t loud about his background as a military man, but it wasn’t something he hid either. But there was something else in Pedey’s lined face. He ran the numbers in his head. The man might have fought at some point, been disillusioned with the American armed forces. God knew that was a common enough situation among the vets he kept in touch with.
But that wasn’t the point. At best, Pedey was just throwing darts, trying to find something that would catch in his skin; at worst, he was actively distracting Tex to make his own play more likely to succeed. He needed to stay focused on the goal. On destroying this cancer of a man. He had no delusions about it being a heroic act or some kind of great mission. But it needed to happen all the same.
“I have my own sins,” Tex said. “But they are not why we are here.”
“I took a job,” Pedey said, anger boiling over now, his hands shaking. “I did my job. Just like you did.”
And then it all fell into place. Pedey was just as angry at what he’d done as Tex and Jessie were. Oh, for a different reason, of course. He hadn’t known Smokey hadn’t known what would come of his acts, but he’d been kept up at night for years because of what he’d done that day, so many years ago.
For a moment, Tex considered mercy. If the man had been torn up for all these years about what he’d done, then what good would it do to kill him? Wouldn’t the kinder thing be to let him live, try and let him find his salvation at some point?
Maybe a better man would have made that choice. Tex was not a kinder man. He drew his weapon and pointed it at Pedey’s head. The man stumbled back a pace, his eyes wide. His pupils were dilated to an extreme, with drugs or adrenaline, and his hands were shaking hard enough to vibrate his arms.
“Man,” Pedey said, over and over. “Man. Man. Man.”
It was a prayer or a plea. Tex didn’t know. If he was still haunted by his terrors as hard as he had been when he first came back, he would have been grateful to have a gun at his temple. God knew he’d put his own weapon there often enough, but chickened out before he ever pulled the trigger. A sense of calm descended over his body, a belief that he was doing the right thing for the man in front of him, and for the past behind both him and Jessie. This would be a clean end, and it would let them move into the future with the demons of the past finally put to rest.
He squeezed the trigger, and several things happened very quickly.
First: Take drew next to him, ready to back him up if necessary, but his gun at rest down at his waist. Some cold, analytical part of Tex’s brain noticed that and nodded; you never raised your gun until you were prepared to shoot.
Second: Mac screamed and vaulted off his bike.
Third: Pedey closed his eyes, his arms thrown wide like Christ on the cross, accepting whatever came next.
Fourth: Mac launched himself into the path of the bullet.
Fifth: A spray of blood spattered across Pedey’s face, but it wasn’t from a bullet wound on his own body. It was from Mac, who was spitting blood into Pedey’s face. A spreading stain, too black to be real blood, blossomed across Mac’s lower back, and his body began to shake and shutter. Kidneys. Oh shit. Oh shit. Mac had fallen into Pedey’s body, and Pedey had caught him. The two men held each other as one of them shuttered and then went limp. From pain or shock or death, Tex wasn’t sure yet, but there were bullets flying from those in concealed positions, and he didn’t have time to be analytical anymore; training took over. He dove behind one of the bikes, trying to calm his mind enough to assess where the shots were coming from.
Take fired off a couple of shots to his left—Tex’s back, now, the direction of the Racketeer’s clubhouse—then slid down beside Tex, crouching out of the direction of the shots. Yes. They were coming primarily from that location, and were focused on him and Take. Tex glanced down at the mass of Sons who had ridden up with them; they were not yet under fire, but that would change in the next few seconds.
He saw that Jessie had crouched down under cover, just like he had, but she wasn’t cowering. Someone had given her a weapon and she was holding it like she was cautious of it, but not afraid of it. She was studying the trees and the line of the clubhouse as the others swung into motion. Jessie moved with them, her weapon kept low, and staying behind the other fighters, but she stayed with them, which protected her just as much as it protected them. They began to return fire, and he heard the sounds of bodies falling. They weren’t shooting to kill; it was too dark for such precise gun work. They were pushing the gunners back out of their cover, approaching in an organized fashion, circling them and driving them out. A handful of his people covered the entrance to the clubhouse, and when people started to pour out of the squat, concrete building, they were quickly taken under control, put up against the wall, searched for weapons, and monitored.
It was over almost as soon as it had begun. It seemed that Mac hadn’t told the rest of the club what was happening. They came out prepared to fight when they heard gunshots, but they had no idea why the Sons of Chaos had ridden tonight. When Take cleared the motorcycles, and began to speak to the rest of the Racketeer’s leadership about Pedey, Smokey, and what had brought them out here, he saw winces and heard promises that this was considered done. The remaining leadership gave their word that they would clear out of Castello by the following day. Even Vanessa’s face twisted up in horror at the story Take spun. She glanced at Jessie with something approaching respect; that was an interesting connection he had zero interest in exploring.
Which just left Pedey, crouching in the dust, holding the limp form of Mac against him. Tex reached down and pressed his fingers into Mac’s neck, feeling for a pulse. There was nothing, not even a faint thrum. Pedey knew it already. When he looked up at Tex’s face, his expression was lost and broken. There had been more between the men than friendship, Garret suddenly realized. It was the only reason Mac had dove between them like that. Pedey had come to the conclusion that he deserved the bullet in Tex’s gun, and Mac took it anyway.
Jessie came up to him, slowly approaching. She still held the weapon she’d been given. She stood over them, her eyes dark, but her hands steady. “This him?” Tex nodded.
Pedey stood, Mac’s body falling limply to the ground. “Who the fuck are you?”
Tex felt something deep inside of him twist. He didn’t like the look in Pedey’s eyes at all, but he also knew that if he stepped in right now, Jessie would be furious with him. She wasn’t here to be protected.
“You killed my big brother. You destroyed my family. You destroyed me, and it took me years to put myself back together.”
Pedey scoffed, bouncing on his toes. “Little girl, that’s life. Your father is trash, and he needed a lesson. I’m sorry you and your brother got in the way, but that’s how it goes. Live with it. Get over it, like the rest of us do.”
Jessie brought the gun up, and it was all wrong. She was holding it with just one hand, not two, and her stance was unstable, like a gunman in a movie instead of a square-shooting soldier. “Say it again,” she said, her voice trembling.
Pedey glanced over and Tex, and the wild grin that flashed over his face left Tex crying out, but he wasn’t fast enough. Pedey’s jerky movements before had been some kind of blind; now, he moved like a trained special operative or martial artist, liquid motion and seamless movement. Before Tex could take a single step, he had taken the weapon out of Jessie’s hand and rolled her up in a chokehold. She screamed and bit at his arm, but he just jerked her off her feet for a moment, leaving her limp and gasping when her feet hit the ground again.
“Fair trade, I think,” Pedey said, talking to himself. “I owed you my life. But not his. Never his. That wasn’t acceptable. She’s coming with me. Put your gun up.”
Tex couldn’t breathe. Pedey had his heart in his arms, and had a gun to Jessie’s temple. He couldn’t breathe. There was no way to get to her and get her free before—
Jessie caught his eyes and calm descended again. Her hands moved in a blur, and like she’d been better trained than he was. Her finger got in behind the trigger, pulling the gun out of alignment, and as soon as she was clear of a shot, she dug into the pressure point between Pedey’s thumb and forefinger. Tex knew that move painfully well, and he’d watched it bring the most muscle bound assholes down to their knees. His arm went limp as he cried out with pain, and she struggled free.
The second she was clear, Tex moved in fast, knocking Pedey straight in the belly. The man dropped down to his knees, the weapon falling into the dust. Tex kicked it away.
“Finish it,” Pedey wheezed. His eyes were close to pleading.
Tex drew down with the weapon he was still holding, but Jessie touched his wrist. He glanced at her, and the hunger in her eyes was unmistakable.
If he were really a hero, he was sure he would have done things differently. He would have taken the shot, taken on one more demon to haunt his sleep, but he wasn’t a hero. She wanted this to be hers, and he couldn’t bring himself to both take on the demon and take it away from her. Not when she wanted it. She would find for herself that it wasn’t what she’d hoped for, but that wasn’t something he could explain to her. Not now. Not ever. It just didn’t work.
He passed her the weapon, and carefully corrected her stance as Pedey waited, his eyes focused on Mac’s body. Both hands. Feet stable. Take a breath. Exhale halfway. Squeeze.
A second body fell into the dust, and it was done. It was finally, incredibly. Done.