Page 61 of Sweet Revenge for the Bikers

Rebel flips one over his shoulder, but Riptide takes a fist to the face as another grabs his cut long enough to distract him. I capture the arms of the guy who punched him and throw him back into the crowd. As more and more members on both sides throw themselves into it, keeping track is getting harder.

“Where’s Joker?” I yell. He’s the one we need.

A car starts on the other side of the brawl, but as long as they’re not gonna use it to barrel through the crowd, the least of my worries is someone getting away. Unless it’s fucking Joker.

Riptide, working his jaw after the punch, points. “Over there.”

Joker, cuffs hanging loose off one wrist, his gag gone, is wrestling one of the Devil’s Brigade members to the ground, throwing him down with so much force that I hear his head crack on the asphalt from back here. Another one throws himself at him, but is forced to the side by yet another attacker.

We’ve been pulled into a fucking civil war.

I punch and wrestle my way toward Joker, flanked by Riptide and Rebel. I don’t fucking care what happens internally in the Devil’s Brigade, but we promised Melody to keep Joker as safe as we can, and we can’t do that if her father manages to fucking kill himself because he’s got some kinda revenge fantasy going on.

“Come on!” I shove a fucker to the side. Rebel slams his fist into another, who goes down like he just learned what gravity is. Riptide spins a guy with so much force that he trips and rolls down the asphalt behind us.

Wait. Who the fuck gave Joker a gun?

Two Brigade members have Rocco by the arms, holding him still, while he yells in panic. “Fucking help me! Goddamn traitors!”

Joker’s mouth twists into a victorious grin, a trail of blood sliding down his chin from his mouth. He points the gun at Rocco’s head.

Fuck.

“Clutch was right. You shoulda killed me while you had the chance.”

Joker pulls the trigger.

31

REBEL

Rocco falls in slow motion, the gunshot still echoing around us. Straight through the face and out the back of his head, the bullet tears through him, killing him instantly. Blood sprays over the asphalt, but by the time it lands, Rocco’s already a heap at Joker’s feet.

The silence right afterwards is deafening. Everyone stops what they’re doing and goes for cover instead. With all of us out in the fucking open, that’s not where you wanna be when the bullets start flying.

“What the everliving fuck?” Eagle-eye yells. His piece is in his hand and he’s scanning the battleground. One eye or not, I’ve never heard anything about it affecting his aim any.

The rest of us have ours out as well, turning it into an uncomfortable standoff. Everyone’s looking at everyone else and waiting for the other shoe to drop.

That said, I think it might already be over.

Joker stands over Rocco’s corpse, the barrel of his gun still trailing a thin line of smoke. He smirks. “As the new president of the Devil’s Brigade, I’m open to discussing business.”

“Fucking traitor,” one of his own snarls at him, just before the guy next to him slams a pistol butt into the back of his head. He collapses, knocked out.

“Do I execute him?” The other guy aims his gun.

Joker gives it a moment’s consideration. “Nah. We’ll leave him here. If he ever comes back to the club, we deal with it then.”

Eagle-eye shakes his head, letting out a dry chuckle. “Care to explain what the fuck just happened? I don’t give a shit about that sack of meat at your feet, but that doesn’t fix our problem. My men have a fucking score to settle.”

“And I won’t stand in your way. This has been a long time coming.” Joker gestures at the body. A pool of blood is rapidly growing, spreading under his boots. “He’s been losing his grip for years, but we stuck it out for loyalty’s sake. Still, that’ll only get you so far. The way he handled this shitshow was the fucking last straw. He was willing to throw any of us at you to make the problem go away.”

Some of the Devil’s Brigade have already taken off, and the rest have started separating into two groups, one clearly with Joker, and the other made to kneel on the ground. There are a lot more standing, showing Joker has support. Whether it’s going to be a good thing or a bad thing that he’s now in charge remains to be seen, if he even manages to hold on to it.

Eagle-eye and Joker evaluate each other for a long minute before nodding. They holster their guns, and slowly the rest of us follow. The risk of sudden death is greatly reduced, but everyone’s still eyeing everyone else. I’m not thrilled about this new direction. It feels like a very precarious truce.

“Where’s Melody?” I scan the field, but she’s nowhere to be found. And neither is Clutch, for that matter.