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Lisa chews her lower lip nervously. “I’ve seen a couple of things since Diesel and I got together,” she admits, “but nothing outrageous. I mean, not like a shootout or something. Just guys flashing their guns at each other, but they’ve always calmed down before anyone got shot. But Becca, they are a motorcycle club. You can’t ignore that. I’m pretty sure that the Black Fist is into some illegal shit, and that always brings—”
Men bust through the front door, shooting their guns into the air, screaming for us to get down, just as Lisa whispers, “Trouble.”
Oh, we’re in trouble all right. My drink sloshes in my hand erratically as I try to put it down on the coffee table. It goes sideways, spilling brown liquid everywhere, but I ignore it and drop to hide behind the coffee table, my legs quivering, my stomach a mess. I can’t breathe. I can’t believe this is happening. Who was guarding the place? Aren’t there supposed to be guards? I don’t know much about MCs, but even I’ve heard that. Surely not everyone went to the vet rally!
The bullets stop and a dead silence extends over the room. I swear, no one is even breathing.
“Which one of you is Becca Whiting?” the leader shouts out into that awful silence and Lisa and Rory’s eyes shoot straight at me, panic on all of our faces. I freeze. I don’t know what to do. I can’t just continue to hide here forever, but I’m pretty sure these guys aren’t here to give me a pedicure.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” the leader says in a sing-song voice. “I’m from the Dark Tribe club, and I have a present for you.”
The sarcastic part of me, which always comes out whenever I’m in the middle of something truly awful, encourages me to say, “Oh, oh, a new Gucci bag? My old one was getting so gauche,” but I ignore it.
I like being sarcastic. I don’t like being dead.
Sacrifices have to be made sometimes...
The men have fanned out around the room, looking for me. The panic is rising in me and I’m mortally afraid I’m going to throw up right here, right on top of the new rug I had installed last week. I gulp back the bile, breathing in and out slowly. Carefully.
Think, Becca, think! You can get out of this.
Except, I really don't know how. They have guns, and I do not. There are lots of them, and only one of me.
I decide to stay on the floor. Luckily, we are pretty far away from the front door and it’s a big open floor plan with lots of groupings of furniture everywhere. Yeah, they're going to find me, eventually, but I don't have to make it easy on them.
“Our clubhouse got burned to the ground today,” the leader snarls out. “We barely escaped with our lives. It was Harlan who did it, and I’m going to make him pay by killing the woman he loves.”
Oh, did I have news for him. If he's going to kill me as revenge against Harlan, that isn’t going to do him much good. In fact, they could deliver my cold, dead body to Harlan and he’d probably say, “Who’s that?”
As I’m debating how believable it would be for me to tell these hardened killers that, no matter how true it is, they don’t have a whole lot of reason to believe me, a shot rings out, shattering one of the lights on my end of the clubhouse. Everyone freezes.
“You here for my girl?” a voice asks from the darkness.
18
Harlan
I take advantage of the surprise and blast a hole the size of Texas into Devil, the leader of the Dark Tribe. I can’t help it; I grin with self satisfaction at the lifeless body crumpling to the floor. He was a bastard through and through who’d picked a perfect name for himself. He deserved to die a much more painful death, of course, but life doesn’t always do fair.
His followers take my momentary distraction of self congratulations to run pell-mell through the front door. Since there was no one outside to guard the place, they were going to get away. But, it isn’t like I could’ve taken them all down anyway. Me and Butch against the whole Dark Tribe? Not a chance in hell.
I step out of the shadows, scanning the room for survivors. Surely since I left, the club hadn’t completely fallen into disrepair like this, right? Who leaves a clubhouse standing empty?
B
ecca’s head pops up over the top of the furniture.
“Harlan!” she gasps. “I thought that was your voice!” She comes tearing around the furniture, even going over the top of the couch at one point, until she finally gets to my side and throws her arms around my waist. “Dedgeuaxally—”
I pull her away from my chest a little bit, as hard as it is for me to put even millimeters between us. She obediently starts again. “Did you actually burn down their clubhouse?” she demands.
“What? No. I mean, I probably would have if I’d known where it was at, but I didn’t, so—” I stop myself. That is not where I want this conversation going. “Where the fuck is everyone?”
Lisa and Rory have made their way over to me, and lean on furniture, legs shaking so hard, I can see it from over here.
“The guys all went to a Vietnam veteran rally,” Rory says. “I guess they didn’t think the clubhouse needed guarding.”
“Is Crankshaft here?” I demand.
