Page 26 of Crow
“Damn right.” Ray nodded, grabbing my face to bring me in for a kiss. As his teeth pulled at my lower lip, his nails bit into the flesh of my ass, and he used that grip to pull me closer against him, rutting up against me through our jeans. Beneath the music and yelling of the Freeways, I could hear the rumble of bike engines, getting louder as they drew nearer, and then silence. I brushed the noise away, thinking more Freeways had come to join the party.
Then the front door burst open, wood splinters flying across the room, and about half a dozen men barged their way in, guns in hand. Everything happened so fast. Shots were fired, bullets shattering a lamp and burrowing into the walls with deafening bangs as most of the Freeways shouted and ducked for cover. Most of the girls screamed and ran out of the room, almost trampling the few that were too drugged up to realize what was happening. Lab Rat was scrambling for the gun he kept in the waistband of his jeans, pulling one of the girls, Glimmer, in front of him as a shield.
Breaker shoved Jess toward the stairs as he dove for where the Freeways kept their gun cache, yelling for her to hide. I tried to catch her eye as she reached the second floor, but I flinched as a bullet splintered the wall where her head had been only moments before. When I looked back, she was gone. I wanted to run too, my heart beating fast in my chest, but Ray stayed still, his punishing hold on me preventing me from leaving his lap.
“Get a fuckin’ hold of yourselves,” he growled. His gun was in his other hand, pulled from the side of the couch, and aimed steadily at the men in the doorway. I tried to swallow around the lump in my throat, but my mouth was too dry. All around me, the Freeways had armed themselves, the mad scramble of surprise replaced with fury and determination. I had never seen the Freeways in action before. I didn’t know how dangerous they could look, like predators stalking and waiting to pounce.
My heart was in my throat, beating so loud the gunshots seemed quiet, and when I saw the group of invaders, I wasn’t sure I could have moved even if Ray had let go of me. My ears began to ring, everything around me blurring as my vision narrowed down to the men swarming into the room. Even as my head told me it was impossible, my stomach dropped. I had the dawning feeling that I had known, deep down, who was coming through the door. Right at the front, in leather cuts with patches identifying him as the treasurer of the Blazing Rebels, was Crow.
Chapter Thirteen
Crow
Time slowed to a stop as I locked eyes with Jade. She stared back, green eyes wide and scared, and two realizations hit me at once.
One: Jade was splayed across the lap of Ray, the president of the Freeway Fucks.
Two: I was pointing a gun at her. Worse, other people were pointing guns at her. Shots had already been fired, and I wouldn’t be able to prevent her from being hit by a stray bullet if this became the final showdown it was meant to be.
Fury clashed with fear in my chest. I had put so much effort into making this happen, into being able to wipe the Freeway Fucks out of Mascid, protect my family, and take revenge for Snake and Hollywood and all the others. Except now, once again, this fucking woman was ruining my plans.
I thought I could hate her, if I thought too much about it. But I still couldn’t bear the idea of her being hurt.
“Crow!” Wrench was shouting at me, grabbing onto my shoulder and drawing my attention away from the horror slowly dawning on Jade’s face. “Get your head in the fucking game, man!”
I became aware of the shouting, of the bullets piercing the air, and the punches being thrown. The coffee table was overturned in the middle of the room, stuffing was oozing from bullet holes in the couch, and Claymore had discarded his gun to roll around the floor brawling with one of the Freeways. Someone had pulled out a knife, its blade glinting red in the light, and Ink was hanging back clutching his arm as blood streamed from a gash on his bicep. A rat-faced little man was shoving some glassy-eyed, half-dressed woman in front of himself as he scrambled away.
“Coward!” Tank snarled but was stopped from going after him by the muzzle of a gun pressing against his chest. Ray had pushed Jade from his lap and pulled a handgun from the side of the couch, and now he and Tank were locked in a standoff, staring each other down with their guns trained steadily at each other.
Wrench yanked me out of the way of a stray bullet, swearing loudly as he fired back, and I mentally shook myself.
“We have to leave,” I told him, shouting to be heard above everything else. He sent me an incredulous look.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” he shouted back. “This wasyour fucking plan, Crow!”
“I know, but we have to go,” I insisted. I hadn’t fired a single shot yet. Jade was still staring at me from the floor, and I couldn’t stop picturing her going limp and slumping over the way Hollywood had the last time we were in a gunfight with the Freeways. Beside me, Vegas managed to shoot one of the Freeways in the stomach. The large man went pale, one hand going to press against the hole in his stomach as he dropped to the floor in front of Jade; I could see blood spatters on her face, lurid against her pale skin. Her green eyes were wide behind a curtain of her long, dark hair. I mentally begged her to move away, follow the other women into a different part of the house, but she didn’t budge. I grit my teeth, swearing she took pleasure from making my life harder.
“You can’t be serious,” Vegas scoffed, firing another round. “We surprised them, this is our chance!”
“We’re outnumbered,” I said, scrambling for excuses. “And Ink’s hurt. We need to regroup.”
Claymore let out a yell and went limp, collapsing on top of the brute he had been fighting. Just beyond them, the two club presidents still hadn’t moved or looked away from each other, the area surrounding them a speck of calm in the chaos the conflict had created.
“We’ll be a laughingstock!”
“We’ll be alive!” I stared at Wrench, needing him to understand how suddenly all of this felt so, so wrong. “Please, trust me.”
After a moment, he snarled, “Fuck’s sake.” He turned away from me. “Vegas, Ripper, grab Claymore and drag his ass out of here. Ink, start the van. I know you’re hurt, fucking deal with it. The rest of you, cover them.” He raised his voice. “Tank, we gotta go, man!”
“You serious?” Tank asked, not taking his eyes off Ray.
“Yeah, that’s what I fucking said, now c’mon lets fuckinggo.”
Wrench and I fired shot after shot as the rest of the Rebels retreated. I did my best to aim away from where Jade was still sitting on the floor. Before long, the two of us and Tank were the only Rebels left in the building.
“Tank!” I snapped. “Either shoot him and be done with it, or fucking move!”
“Fucking—” Tank growled, suddenly shooting Ray in the shoulder. The man fell back with a cry, and then Tank was disappearing through the front door. I fired a few more shots to deter people following us, and then Wrench and I were racing for the bikes.
