I knew this wouldn’t end well.
And when I said “I knew,” I didn’t know because Chops was standing there. I didn’t know because of the way we all paused. I didn’t know because of the girls that gasped, obviously recognizing him, or even because of the shit we’d been through up until this point.
I knew things wouldn’t end well because my mind started playing out all sorts of ways to kill him.
For example, stabbing him in his thigh. Even with the pen I had stuffed behind my ear, one jab in the right place would rip right through his femoral artery. Same with his carotid as well. But if I really wanted to leave him with lasting damage he’d have to chew on for the rest of his life, I could jam that pen straight into his spine from behind.
Paralyzing him from the waist down, if I jabbed it in between the right vertebrae.
“Hey!” Chops barked.
I blinked and watched as Brooks stepped to the forefront. “What?”
Chops snarled at him. “I asked, where the fuck did those girls come from, and why the fuck are they here?”
I grinned. “Pretty sure you only asked the former.”
Chops peered over Brooks’ shoulder and glared at me. “You’ve never been funny.”
I nodded. “And you’ve never been an efficient leader.”
He moved away from Brooks and charged me. “Say that again to my face, you slimy piece of shit.”
“Oh, no you don’t,” Brooks growled.
Brooks grabbed Chops’ arm and whipped him around, which caused the man to react. And when Chops’ fist first connected with Brook’s jawline, the entire room fell silent. Some of the girls gasped as they slowly inched back down the hallway. I maneuvered myself in between the scene unfolding and the entryway, hoping to provide a bit of comforting shelter for those frightened girls. But as the soft swelling of Brooks’ jaw became apparent, I grew worried that Chops had done some real damage.
Like fracturing the man’s jaw.
“You’ll give me the answer I want, or you’re finished,” Chops hissed.
Brooks held his head high. “We have something we’d all like to speak with you about.”
“It got to do with those girls? Because that’s all I’m paying attention to right now.”
Porter stepped out of the shadows. “Actually, it does have something to do with them.”
I peered over at him. “You sure about this?”
Chops growled. “Sure about what?”
Tanner walked over beside me, helping with the self-made barrier. “I’m down if you guys are down.”
Chops barked at us. “Down for what? What is it!? Come on, someone’s balls better drop so they can spit out whatever the fuck’s going on!”
Then, Finn cleared his throat. “What’s going on is the fact that we’re trying to save these girls from a dock we found them at. That’s what.”
The entire room froze as Chops slowly turned around to face him. “A dock.”
Finn nodded. “Yep.”
Chops tilted his head off to the side. “What dock?”
I shrugged. “Does that matter? We saved them, and now we’re working with law enforcement to—”
Chops roared. “Since when the fuck do we ever work with law enforcement!?”
Brooks gripped his arm and spun Chops back around. “Since we happened upon a scene unfolding that we couldn’t ignore.”
Chops blinked. “What. Dock?”
I sucked air through my teeth. “You know, for a man who’s supposed to be the President of a pretty good crew, I’d say you’re a bit more focused on the dock and a bit less focused on our health, or the health of the girls. Care to explain why?”
Chops lunged at me. “I’m gonna wring your fucking—”
Brooks growled. “Allow me.”
As Chops tried to come for me, Brooks reached out and clothes-lined him right in the fucking neck. I barked with laughter as Finn scrambled behind me, trying to usher the girls back down the hallway. They didn’t need to see this. None of this was their issue. They were innocent bystanders and victims in a game Chops had been playing for far too long.
And as I cracked my knuckles, the rest of us hovered over Chops as he peeled himself up off the ground.
“That’s it,” he hissed.
As he rose up to his feet, his fist came up and clocked Porter just beneath his chin. The man stumbled back as Brooks lunged at him, but Chops flung the man across the room as if he were an unwanted stuffed animal.
But when Tanner’s fist connected with the man’s gut, Chops doubled-over in pain as he gasped for air.
Which gave me enough time to grab a knife out of the kitchen drawer.
I gripped the man’s hair and ripped his head back, holding the blade against his throat. I was ready for it. I was ready to open this man up and see the dark contents of his insides spill out all over the floor. But the second Brooks said my name, I slowly looked up at him.
“Hold him there,” he commanded.
And I did as he asked.
“You’ll pay for this,” Chops murmured, “every single fucking one of you.”
Brooks crossed his arms over his chest. “Funny, I’m pretty sure we only asked you a question and you’re the one that got defensive. Right, guys?”
Porter nodded. “Sounds about right.”
Tanner shrugged. “That’s what I got out of it.”
I chuckled. “Give me a reason, please.”
Finn jogged back into the room with a gun at his side. He didn’t say anything, but he wrapped around behind me and slipped the piece into the back of my belt loop. The mere idea that I needed one of those didn’t bode well for where this was going, but Finn had always had a very good sense of direction.
Not just in nature, but with humans, too.
“Release him,” Brooks said.
I furrowed my brow. “You sure about that?”
He nodded his head. “Let the man stand. I want to say something to him before he leaves.”
Reluctantly, I released Chops and he stood to his feet. The man glared at me from over his shoulder as he cracked his neck, trying his best to shrug off my touch. Then, the two men faced off.
Our current President with the man we all knew would eventually replace him.
“What?” Chops asked. “You think you can just banish me from here without any rhyme or reason?”
Brooks licked his lips. “I’ll ask you one more time. Why are you so concerned with where they came from versus whether or not they’re okay?”
He blinked. “If you walked into my house and there were a bunch of women sprawled out everywhere, would you be asking if they were all right, or would you be asking where I found all of them in the first fucking place?”
“Well, see, that’s the difference between the two of us.”
“The fuck does that mean?”
I slowly wrapped my hand behind me and gripped the handle of the gun Finn had placed in my possession.
Then, Brooks spouted the only truth we knew. “If you were going to be fucking all of those girls, then you don’t strike me as the kind of man who would give a shit whether or not the girl was okay. After all, they’re nothing but a release, right? Something to use before you toss them back out onto the street? I mean, who cares if they’re okay, so long as they serve their purpose, right?”
Chops’ nostrils flared. “Think whatever the fuck you want, but I know one thing for certain.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
He whipped around and faced me, but it wasn’t until I heard the bombastic crack that I realized what had happened.
“I never come unprepared,” Chops said.
As he whipped around, the man had pulled a gun from the inside of his leather jacket. And the second that bullet popped off, Tanner took me to the ground. Wood splintered as the bullet embedded itself into the wall, and as I laid on my stomach with Tanner covering me, the girls screamed in the background.
“Take cover!” Brooks exclaimed.
I whipped my gun out and took aim as Chops’ dancing feet. I closed one eye, trying to position myself as gunfire rained down inside our clubhouse. The girls cried. My brothers scrambled. Chops’ cackled with laughter as he emptied his chamber before reloading his magazine.
And as he popped the empty one out, that was when I struck.
“Fucking hell!” Chops cried out.
I popped a bullet off that grazed his left arm before aiming for his right knee. He stumbled around in pain, his gun clattering to the ground before Tanner lunged for it. He scooped it up and raced across the room, disassembling it and dropping parts as if he were Hansel in some fucked-up fairytale rendition.
And as I stood to my feet, I trained my gun on Chops as another bullet came flying out of nowhere.
Sinking itself right into the man’s dominant arm.
“Shit!” Chops wailed.
Brooks holstered his weapon and ripped Chops up from the ground by his hair. “You listening now?”
Chops sniggered. “You’ll never get away with this. Each and every one of you will pay with your lives.”
Brooks tossed him toward the door like a sack of potatoes. “Good luck. We’ll give you a five-second head start before we keep pursuing you. Consider it a nice game of target practice.”
“One,” Porter murmured.
“Two,” Tanner said with a grunt.
“Three,” Brooks said with a sigh.
“Four,” I growled.
Then, Finn walked toward the door. “Fucking five.”
We all raced out into the night as Chops’ motorcycle struck up. We leapt onto our vehicles, blazing a trail after the man as his bike swerved and darted along the road. I wasn’t sure what the fuck Brooks’ plan was, but we had him. We had him at our feet and he tossed him out the door? With a fucking head start?
I wasn’t sure what the point of that was, other than to posture.
And as Chops slowly pulled away from us, racing into the evening, all we did was shoot nefarious shots into the literal dark to see if we could ping his back.
Or his head.
Or the tires of his bike.
The chase led us from the clubhouse all the way into the heart of the city where we lost Chops as he weaved in and out of alleyways. And after coming to a dead-end without an inkling of him anywhere in sight, I cursed to myself. I slammed my fists against the handlebars of my bike, roaring inside my helmet as car horns honked all around us.
I wasn’t sure what the fuck Brooks was thinking, but I was livid.
I wasn’t the only one, though.
“What the fuck was that about!?” Porter exclaimed.
We all ripped our helmets off after parking in the lot of our clubhouse as Brooks started for the front door.
“Hey!” Tanner exclaimed. “The man asked you a question!”
Brooks didn’t turn around. “Come inside and I’ll answer.”
I wasn’t sure what kind of answer he could possibly have for us, but when we got inside and closed the door, we got a glimpse of just how brilliant Brooks could be under pressure.
“So, what?” Porter asked. “What the fuck do we do now?”
Brooks grinned. “Cole.”
“Yeah?”
“How many bullets did you sink into him?”
I shrugged. “I don’t think any of my shots landed. Why?”
“And where did you shoot him again?”
I blinked. “Holy shit, you’re a genius.”
Brooks grinned. “Don’t say I never have my moments.”
Porter clicked his tongue. “Someone wanna fill the rest of us in?”
I chuckled. “My shots only grazed him.”
Finn raised his hand. “I’m the one that sank the bullet into his arm.”
I raised my hand. “Good shot.”
He gave me a high-five. “Thanks.”
“So?” Porter asked.
I drew in a deep breath. “So, those are some pretty major joints. When I was a combat medic, we had a crude way of speaking when it came to the body. Areas of the body that bled more than others were ‘bleeders,’ and areas of the body that didn’t bleed so heavily when struck were considered ‘primary zones’. We liked the latter, hated the former. But in this instance, all of the areas of his body that were struck were bleeders. He’s going to have to get it looked at, otherwise, he is fucked.
Brooks nodded. “And that means there’s now a blood trail all across town showing us exactly where Chops is going, along with the potential that he ended up somewhere to get it fixed.”
Before any of the guys could react, the door burst open and we all whipped our guns up to our faces. We aimed them at the person charging through, but the second we registered who it was, Brooks and Porter both commanded us to quickly drop our weapons.
Then, Astrid sighed. “What’s going on and why am I needed?”
Porter raced over to her. “What the hell are you doing here? You should be at home.”
Brooks clicked his tongue. “Yeah, for starters. Who called my sister?”
Josie’s voice sounded behind me. “I did. I’m going to need some help with the girls tonight. I figured she could help out since she already knows what’s going on.”
Astrid nodded as she pushed between the two protective men. “Show me where they are and what I can do.”
Then, Josie patted me on my shoulder. “We could really use your expertise for a couple more of these girls, if you’re up for it.”
I nodded and holstered my weapon. “Lead the way.”
Brooks sighed. “The rest of us will break into two teams and scour the city for those blood droplets and streaks. Find out if he went to any of our old contacts to get patched up. I want a fully-identified outline of where Chops went and how long he was there before he took off again. I want us to look until there’s no more blood to clock, and then tomorrow we’ll start pulling security camera footage to confirm shit.”
And once the game plan was in play, we all escaped to our next jobs.
All the while wondering what Chops might do next.
