Page 38 of Savage

“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. 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 on 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 going 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 hanging 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 fucking 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 fucking thinking 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 fucking ear off, she moves like a pro. I jerk the handlebars to the right, so we don’t wind up eating gravel and we straighten out, only now there’s nothing between us and the van.

Up ahead Prez and Killer fire off shots. Someone is shooting from behind me—Grim, more than likely. I don’t have time to check because Prez takes aim and fires, blowing out the front tyre on the left-hand side. The van swerves but cuts back in close, too close. They almost take out my bike, and Indie screams as the side of the vehicle brushes our legs. I pull my gun from my holster and take aim. Indie tucks her head into my back. Trigger comes flying up the inside, overtaking Prez and emptying his clip into the windshield of the van. His aim isn’t so fucking great, and a stray bullet slices the air as it whips past our faces. I don’t have time to tell Indie to move, but seconds later I’m taking comfort in the fact that her trembling hands are still holding onto my waist with a grip tighter than death, it means she hasn’t been hit.

Crazy fuck. We make it out of this alive, and I’m gonna beat that fucker’s head in.

I fire off an entire clip. One shot makes contact, and the van swerves across the road, colliding with an oncoming SUV. It’s airborne, and then it comes crashing down in front of us. Prez swerves out into oncoming traffic. Grim hits the brakes, but not fast enough; he’s thrown from the bike and lands on the shoulder. Killer and I both manage to swerve around without incident, but I brake too hard, and Indie’s helmeted head smacks into mine.

For a half second, I’m blinded with pain. It hurts like a fucking bitch, and I pray like hell that we’re not about to be rear-ended because I can’t fucking see straight. I ease us off on to the shoulder of the road, but as I turn the bike around and see my brothers in various stages of devastation, I realise it could have been worse. Prez rides over to the upturned van followed by Trigger, who’s fucking lucky he’s not getting his face pounded in. Prez puts the kickstand down and climbs off the bike, then he leans down to look in the window, fires off several shots and opens the door with a gloved hand. A body falls out, some fat-arsed white motherfucker with his face all pockmarked with bullets. I bring us to a stop near the van, flip the stand and climb off, grabbing Trigger by the cut and slamming him into the side of the vehicle. “What the fuck were you thinkin’?”

He lifts his hands in surrender, his eyes wide with shock and his body all jittery and hopped up on adrenaline. I’m shaking too, but I’m not fucking dumb enough to pull half the shit he does when the rush is pumping through my veins. He smiles. “I was thinkin’ about takin’ those motherfuckers down, brother. Prez said to take care of her like she was our own.”

Jesus fucking Christ. He’s like an over-excited puppy.

“And you thought the best way to do that was, what? To cut us off and shoot your motherfuckin’ gun in her face?”

“I saw a chance, I took it,” he snaps back, and my whole body goes rigid. Taking chances is what will get you fucking killed. I pull back my arm and punch him in the face. His head rocks back into the side of the van, and I release him. Trigger doubles over, clutching a hand to his nose.

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