“Yeah, she’s started. Don’t know if she’s got anything useful for us, though. I think she may have tried blocking a lot of it out.”
“We got a package earlier, left at the fucking gate.” He throws a USB stick on the table. “It’s a copy of the little tape you left behind.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah, fuck is right.”
“Seems the cop has done some fuckin’ diggin’, found out which club you ride with. There was a note with that fancy little USB stick there. They want the girl, or they release the tape and you and Tank go down for the murder of the dentist, and the abduction of Kayla Kennedy.”
“If that little fuck goes down, we all go down,” One Eye says. “Jesus fuckin’ Christ. Why don’t we just hand over the bitch, get the fuckin’ tape back and wipe our hands clean?”
“We’re not handing her over,” I seethe.
“That’s not your call to fuckin’ make, kid,” One Eye shouts. “I knew he’d bring the club down on it’s arse. I had a feeling about you, you little shit, and here we fuckin’ are.”
“Eat my dick, old man,” I shout back.
“Shut the fuck up!” Prez roars.
“What are you gonna do, Prez?”
“You mean after I kick your fuckin’ arse for bringing this shit down on my club? I’m gonna do nothin’. You, on the other hand, are gonna do some hard-arse fuckin’ suckin’ up to that bitch you got stowed away in your room. You’re gonna play nice, or beat the shit outta her to get me some FUCKIN’ ANSWERS!” He leans back in his chair and runs a hand down over his face, letting out a loud breath. “But first you’re gonna get her the hell outta this clubhouse so she’s not here when that arsehole orders a raid on my club. We’re not handing over the girl. I don’t like fuckin’ being told what to do by some gutless pig that can’t even handle a negotiation properly. You bastards are gonna protect the girl like she’s your own, or I’m gonna be slammin’ some fuckin’ heads together and putting a shitload of my club to ground. You got me?”
Murmured agreement swallows the room. The tension is crippling. One Eye stands up, knocking back his chair so it clatters against the floorboards. “This is bullshit. If he’d fuckin’ shot her the way he was supposed to, the club wouldn’t be in this fuckin mess.”
“SIT. THE. FUCK. DOWN!” Prez roars. There’s a very long pause. Both men stare down the other, and then One Eye picks up his chair and sits down heavily in it.
“You don’t think they’ll be waitin’ for us to move her?”
“Probably. But then again, that would just bring this fucker out of hiding. Might be wise to dangle the bait a little and see who bites.”
I don’t like this one fucking bit, but what choice do I have? I’m the dumb-arse who got us into this situation in the first place.
“When?”
“Soon as fuckin’ possible. Or else your pretty mug is gonna be splashed across every fucking TV station in this country.”
“Where the fuck am I supposed to take her?Herface has already been splashed across every station in this country. We take her outside those gates, people are gonna have questions.”
“My wife’s gonna kill me for this,” Prez mutters under his breath. “You’ll take the girl to my house. No neighbours, no nothing but mountain air and trees. Place is in Mia’s name, so even if the cops are getting’ all up in club business, it’ll still take some time for them to figure where we are. I’ll make sure the old lady’s out of the way, put her up at the fuckin’ Sheraton if I have to. Grim, you and Crazy will head up there too; take Killer with you. I doubt they’ll try anything during daylight hours, but I want the three of you patrolling the grounds at night.”
“We’re gonna waste good men on this bitch?” One Eye asks. Dude needs to fuckin’ quit before he ends up losing his other eye to my blade. “Fuckin’ bullshit”
“Then aren’t you lucky you’re not going?” Prez says dismissively.
“Indie has no clothes.”
“I’ll have Raine head out and get her some of the shit she needs now, but Mia has a dick-load of boxes full of designer threads I’ve been trying to get her to donate to goodwill. Tell the girl to take whatever she needs from there. Be ready to ride out in thirty fuckin’ minutes, boys. I want us high and tight. Kick, you and the girl will be in the middle.” He bangs the gavel against the table and the brothers disperse.
We leave the clubhouse a little before dawn. It took some convincing to coax Indie from the bathroom floor. I don’t think she even really grasped what was goin’ on. The second I told her about the tape and their demands, she’d huddled against the wall again and begged me not to hand her over. When I finally got her out of the room she hurried through the clubhouse as if she’d had a madman gunning for her head. Which wasn’t all that far from the truth.
The road had been quiet and just when we were twenty minutes from the turn-off to Prez’s place, we picked ourselves up a tail; a black van, not unlike the one Tank and I had sat in a few days earlier as we scoped out the warehouse. It wasn’t obvious at first—it weaved slowly in and out of the light traffic that travelled the M4, but now it’s definitely hangin’ on our arse closer than haemorrhoids.
Prez takes the nearest exit and we follow suit, keeping formation despite the fact that we have to glide over to the right-hand side of the road to avoid taking out a minivan traveling at 20km an hour.I have a bad fuckin’ feelin’ about this. The soles of my feet itch inside my boots and my gut clenches, setting off my Spidey sense—and my gut is never fuckin’ wrong.
The black van follows us up the off-ramp and onto a quiet country road, hanging back for a bit, but then they grow impatient, cutting off the minivan, and forcing the driver to swerve out onto the shoulder. Prez and the brothers ahead of us increase their speed, and I shout to Indie to hold on and move with me. She squeezes her whole body tighter around my back: arms, thighs, even her tits are pushed as tightly against me as they could be. I rev the throttle and we take off.
The van edges up alongside Raphe, who’s riding next to me. The window lowers, and I’m staring back at the barrel of a gun. The gun goes off, and Raphe’s tyre explodes. He’s thrown arse over head onto the bitumen and his bike skids out in front of me. I have to do some pretty quick fuckin’ thinkin’ to avoid colliding with the Fat Boy sliding across the asphalt. I jerk left on the handlebars and lean with the bike, becoming an extension of the machine. What surprises me is that while Indie may be screaming my fuckin’ ear off, she moves like a pro. I jerk the handlebars to the right so we don’t wind up eatin’ gravel and we straighten out, only now there’s nothing between us and the van.