Page 25 of Rodeo (Marked Skulls MC 2)
“What’s the game-plan?” Abe asked me as he lit his cigarette. Girth and I looked at each other, and my hand drifted automatically to the gun at my waist.
“I don’t have one,” I replied and Abe drew in a breath and nodded his head.
None of us, not even Girth, had found ourselves in a situation like this before. We were grossly outnumbered. But the truth was that if Lewis sent all the members of the Marked Skulls to join us, the Hell’s Drifters would still outnumber us. They were a significantly bigger club than us. We were the underdogs and we practically didn’t stand a chance against them.
Launching an attack on them, on their own territory was basically a suicide mission.
I looked over at Abe and Girth, both of whom were staring firmly ahead. I was grateful to them for coming here with me, but I wished that they hadn’t. I didn’t want to drag two of my brothers into the pit with me. There was very little chance that all of us were going to get out of there alive.
For me, this was a matter of vengeance. I was avenging Fred’s death, and I was doing what Jordan wanted me to do. I hadn’t told her exactly how dangerous the shootout was going to be, because I didn’t want her to feel guilty—and I definitely didn’t want her to stop me from going either.
“You guys don’t have to come with me,” I grunted and they both swung their heads to look at me. Abe had a hint of nervousness on his face, which he quickly wiped off.
“You need backup, brother,” Abe said with a grin.
“This is my job,” Girth added, in his calm growling way. I clenched my jaws and looked back towards the door and waited.
I couldn’t see the killer’s bike parked outside, which meant that he wasn’t inside the bar.
“I’m going in first,” I declared, without meeting their eyes.
What I said, basically translated to—I’m taking the first bullet. Neither of them said anything. We just continued to look ahead.
The roar of his bike was loud in our ears. The three of us saw him riding towards the bar at the same moment. My hand went to my waist and I pulled my gun out. This was it. It had to be now or never.
***
We had a small window of opportunity to get the job done. I needed to get to the man before he went inside the bar.
Without alerting Girth or Abe, I started striding towards the parking lot, with my arm on the side and the gun in my hand.
The man was jumping off his bike, and beginning to take his helmet off now.
He looked up when he noticed me charging towards him, and he took his gun out too. I pointed mine at him.
“Motherfucker!” I growled, as we pointed our guns at each other.
“Get the fuck off our property!” he roared back but I didn’t stop striding towards him. I was quickly closing the distance between the two of us, and he remained stationary behind his bike, following my every step towards him with his gun pointed at me.
“What the fuck do you want?” he growled. He had clearly not recognized me or seen the patch on my back.
“You killed Fred,” I hissed, and now I was close enough to him to shoot.
But he shot me first. I swerved back, and the bullet grazed my left shoulder and I felt my skin tear open. There was an instant spilling of blood and I could feel the wet coolness spreading on my shirt and down my arm.
I pulled the trigger at the same time, and I saw him topple backwards. I’d caught him on his upper thigh. Clenching my jaws, I continued to walk towards him.
He shot me again, and I stepped to the side but the second bullet grazed the side of my waist. I felt the sting of skin splitting open again, and the stickiness of blood.
I was close enough to him to shoot him point blank now. I glared at his shiny bald head, the rings on his ears, at the gun pointed to me. I could see in his eyes that the bullet in his thigh was painful for him. I was glad.
He had made the mistake of waiting a second, of not pulling the trigger before me because he could have. I would be dead right now.
But instead, I squeezed the trigger first. I felt the reverberation of the bullet leaving my gun and speeding towards him. There was a slicing sound in the air, just a split-second before there was a thud. The bullet had pierced through his ribcage. He looked up at me, staring, like he was surprised by what had just happened. The bullet was in his heart now and his blood pooled on the spot around his heart.
He staggered, and then fell straight down to the ground like a bag of potatoes.
His eyes remained open, he was staring up at the sky but he was dead. He didn’t have a breath left in him. I had done it. Fred’s death hadn’t gone unpunished. The killer was fucking dead.
***
“Rodeo! Run!” I heard Abe’s voice behind me. That’s when I looked up at the bar doors to see a group of guys charging out. They’d heard the exchange of shots and had come out to look. I had been standing over the dead body of the killer, watching the color drain from his face.
This was what Jordan wanted, what I wanted and I had done it. Whatever happened right now, all I wanted was for Jordan to know that I had killed her father’s shooter. That she could move on with her life now.
Abe and Girth had run over to my side when the first bullet struck the ground beside my feet, and they started shooting. The Hell’s Drifters were shooting back at us and I shot at them too, jumping into action. We were retreating, stepping backwards, shooting and ducking. We had no chance in Hell against the bunch of them who were crawling closer to us.
I didn’t have to look over at my brothers to know that they had been shot too. All three of us were wounded.
There was the sound of a muscle car engine behind us.
“Fuckin A! Lewis sent Marcus!” Abe roared, grabbing my jacket and dragging me backwards.
The shower of gunshots didn’t stop, and we were shooting back too.
Marcus stopped th
e car right behind us, and pushed open the back doors. The three of us jumped into the back, while Marcus started shooting at the men who were now scrambling to get on their bikes and chase after us.
When I slammed the door shut behind us, just seconds before Marcus started speeding away; was when we heard the police sirens.
“What the fuck?” Abe growled, as Marcus stepped on the accelerator.
“Hugh alerted the cops. They were waiting for my signal,” Marcus said as he started driving. Some of the Hell’s Drifters who were about to ride after us, now swerved and headed in the opposite direction when they heard the cops approaching.
The man I had killed was still lying on the parking lot ground. None of those fuckers had bothered with his body. We might have been the underdogs but we wouldn’t have left one of our own behind, no matter if he was already dead.
“Woohoo!” Abe cheered, waving his gun around in the backseat. Girth ducked then pulled the gun out of his hand while Marcus laughed. We saw three cop cars speed past us as we drove. I was staring out of the window, my heart was racing. I couldn’t believe that I’d actually done it, that all of us had come out of there alive.
I looked over at Abe and Girth, both of whom had been shot too. We were all sporting gunshot wounds now but none of us cared.
“For Fred!” Abe cheered.
“For Fred!” Marcus joined in. Girth looked at me and he was grinning now.
“For Fred!” I said and he nodded his head.
“For Fred,” he muttered.
Chapter 22
Jordan
We’d been waiting for several hours for the boys to return, and in the meantime; Lila and I had done nothing other than just drink loads of coffee and talk.
“Is this a good sign?” I asked her, looking at my watch. Lila had started pacing around the room now. Her toughened exterior was beginning to crumble. I could see that she was as worried about Girth now as I was about Rodeo.
