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  “I, well, they said something about it. I didn’t know who they was yapping about. Then I heard y’all was coming to LV, so I put two and two together.”

  Justice brought a meaty hand down on Red’s shoulder and allowed the full weight of his right side to rest atop Red’s razor-thin torso. He crunched under the pressure. Knobs of bone protruded beneath Red’s flakey, tattooed skin. The dingy wife-beater undershirt he wore looked months unwashed.

  Justice allowed the awkwardness of silence to linger until Red lifted one foot and then the next while unsure of what to do with his hands. He crossed and uncrossed them several times before he finally shoved them into his diesel stained denims. Red’s lips quivered. Justice’s didn’t.

  “Okay, Ricky Geneti and me was buds back in the Air Force. He offered to cut the club in on a deal. Then asked a lotta questions about motorcycle gangs and how much cash they really had. I never thought he was talking about ripping off you.”

  Justice’s fingers circled his lips to part the wooly mustache. “That’s fucking unreal.”

  “What, that I knew about the rip off?” Red’s body began to twitch.

  “No, that you were in the military. That’s going to make this even more difficult.”

  Justice looked to the end of the dim-lit hallway and nodded. His national sergeant-at-arms, Vengeance, nodded back and then adjusted a volume dial attached to the wall. Neo-Nazi death rock from Skrewdriver blared throughout the 1%’ers outlaw clubhouse. The heavy metal, head-banging music screamed until no other sounds were audible.

  Red’s methamphetamine-wrecked frame folded frail into Justice’s powerful hands. There wasn’t much t-shirt to tug, so Justice snatched the local leader-turned-traitor by the throat and belt buckle and drove him into the wall. Meatless fingers latched onto Justice’s rock-hard biceps. Red’s eyes bulged. His fingertips, charred by cigarette lighter burns from melting dope on a spoon, had begun to bleed.

  Justice craned his six feet-six pillar of steel to whisper into Red’s ear, “Last chance. Where’s my shit?” Expression unchanged from resistance, Justice jerked Red up and off his feet. He glanced at the first room. The door was closed—not an issue. With the full-force of a rage-fueled wrecking ball, Justice rammed Red’s spine and skull through the solid-core interior door. The door splintered, leaving shards of wood strewn into the hall and embedded into Red’s back. He winched—there’d be more to come.

  “Hey motherfucker, what you think you…” one of three bikers in the room yelled, scrambling for his knife. When Justice glared into his fat bearded face, he cowered and stumbled down the hall.

  Red’s limp, but alert body was physically hurled across the room. The other two bikers, busy finishing up their gang-bang of what looked like a high school freshman, gazed perplexed.

  Stench reeked and Justice dry heaved. The windowless room’s only illumination was porn pumping through computer screens but it was enough to show them the national president had just bounced their local boss off the deck.

  Bare ass, both bikers bolted from the cum-stained mattress shoved into a corner of the cave. The girl lay moaning, rubber tubing knotted around her left forearm. A soiled hypodermic flailed from the rusted tip still jabbed in her vein. Justice rolled her comatose body onto the floor and kicked the wafer-thin mattress over to shield her.

  “How could you dishonor the code, Red?” Justice snarled as he yanked him back up by his wiry ponytail.

  “Money. He offered me money,” Red cried. His words and tears evaporated behind the wallop of Justice’s fist into his soft gut.

  “Where’s my money, Red?”

  “I don’t know. Ricky got a crib in the badlands before the strip.”

  Justice nailed him again so hard it felt like his fist had connected with Red’s spine. “Where’s my weapons, Red?”

  Justice used a pattern of questioning that incorporated his victim’s name for personal connection. It meant Red would remain alive because of the personalization of the question and name. All thanks to the United States government reprogramming.

  “I swear, I don’t know. Ask the pilot… Rocky Jones.” Red gasped short of breath. His wind resounded with a gurgling—internal bleeding.

  “Where’s the brotherhood?”

  “You fucked it up by flipping on our founding fathers. They created this club, not you.” Indignant, those would be Red’s final words.

  Chapter 5

  Abigail slept through the next two days. Each time she’d open her swollen eyes—Jack’s screams tormented her memory. Hell, it’d only been two days—not even long enough to be considered a memory.

  Someone had changed her out of the tiny blue jean cut-off shorts and front-knot checkered shirt. The brush burns along her thighs had been cleaned up, and Nevada state highway asphalt picked out of the wounds in her right elbow. She recalled busting her ass as the biker threatened to shoot her, but the sight of Jack was too much for her frazzled mind to process.

  Her eyes throbbed. Afternoon demanded her attention—there’d be work to do. Steam wafted in the room—Abigail lay flat on her back and stared at the molded ceiling tiles. Caught between grief and fury, she just lay there. Her body was numb, but her thoughts whirled to determine her next reaction, reality and future.

  Finally, she moved. Bare feet padded over the dusty tile floor as she marched a stiff-legged shuffle toward the bathroom. The motion seized her with panic. Too fearful to turn her head, Abigail allowed the peripheral vision to confirm it. Yes, there was movement in her son’s bedroom. Might’ve all been a nightmare? Goosebumps ricocheted across her skin.

  “Jack?” She dared herself to say his name aloud. “Jack, is that you? Come to mommy.” She was so horribly confused she didn’t know what to do. Unsure if she should enter the room, Abigail waited. She did nothing—except be afraid.

  Finally she realized the motion and sound came from the helium balloons and birthday party toys. She gasped. It was real—Jack was gone. Her life would never be the same—no matter how brief. What was she supposed to do now? She could think of nothing. What was the point?

  Full bottle of oxycodone in fist, she slunk back to her bedroom. Her ass teetered on the edge of a third-hand twin mattress. A half-empty glass of discolored water vibrated with each rumbling big rig. Thirty white pills tumbled across her palm and onto the nightstand. She debated over whether to take half or all of them.

  I guess it depends on how dead I want to be.

  All of them. Abigail scooped them into her quaking palm and rattled the pills like shooting dice. A quick sip of warm water to lube up her throat. Her lips pinched at the stagnant taste.

  “Here goes nothing,” she whispered.

  She coaxed her hand toward a trembling bottom lip. Deep, heavy breaths tried to calm her skyrocketing pulse. The thought of all her struggles coming to an end comforted yet terrified her. Her gaze landed on the dresser, on her reflection, and her heart caught in her throat as the bitter taste of the first pill touched her tongue.

  Wet eyes blinked back reluctance. Her thin thighs flexed as one foot skidded from beneath the bed. A passing eighteen-wheeler blared its air horn after screeching tires braked. The abrupt sounds scared her, caused her to peek out through the venetian blinds behind the borrowed clothes dresser drawer.

  Glassy eyes saw it atop her dresser drawer. She dumped the pills onto her mattress, and reached for her future—Ricky’s home address, and her reason for living—revenge.

  * * *

  Justice push-walked his Harley Davidson Road King to the curb. He’d selected the cruiser especially for the journey. Besides being comfortable, it had been an offering from the Las Vegas chapter once he was ordained the president over every chapter in the United States and the few new OMC chapters that sprung up globally.

  His calloused fingers traced the custom imagery painted across the gas tank. It showed his position within the Savage Souls. The sun promised another scorching hot day, but Justice, like the others, sported their leather c
uts without fail. The Western United States was controlled by the Hells Angels, but even they knew the reputation forged by Justice and his headquarter posse.

  Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs wearing full-patched vests, or colors, as the bikers called it, into another OMC’s territory was forbidden unless permission was given—a rare event. Known as patched over, Justice refused to consider wearing the “I support Hells Angels” patches while in Big Red territory. They’d kill each other before he dishonored his own club’s colors.

  Eyes squinted and a glint of approach through his rearview mirror caused him to sit up. Put together like a brick shithouse, Dragon Mike was young and relatively new in the culture of chaos.

  “Mike, I’m counting on you to lead the Savage Nation out here in the desert.”

  The former Marine sergeant extended his right hand. “President Justice, I’m still shocked, but I’ll never let you down. You got my blood oath.” Tacky liquid bubbled from his wound. A razor-sharp KA-BAR had sliced through a heavily tattooed palm for his blood oath, and illustrated his sacred commitment to the Savages and Justice.

  Justice slipped a thumb across the electric starter button—the HOG roared to life. “Don’t be shocked, just be loyal.”

  “Sir, what should I do with Red’s body?” Mike asked. “Starting to ripen the joint.” “Girl still alive?”

  “Barely”

  “Duct tape both together, and drop them off in either the desert or behind a hospital.” Justice tested the new leader with a choice.

  “Really?”

  “You’re in charge now, Mike.”

  “Semper Fi, sir,” Dragon Mike snapped a salute as crisp as his final day at Camp Pendleton. Justice glared back as the ten HOGs rumbled out of sight toward the Jesse James Airfield. His teeth pressed against the wind with delight as the new local chapter leader held his rigid salute until he could no longer see him.

  * * *

  The airfield was semi-private. That usually meant illegal shit went down—especially in a landing strip plowed out in the middle of nowhere. Swung gates were left open, and clattered with the collection of thick chain links and heavy locks. Justice stopped before he glided through the unprotected entrance—almost too easy.

  His left fist clenched shut and was held above his head to bring the other bikes to an idle. “Spread out. Looking for Rocky Jones, a pilot.”

  Shit smells like an ambush to me.

  “Bro, I don’t like this. You trusting Red’s word about this guy as the rip-off pilot?” Mercy, his biological blood brother warned.

  Justice swiveled his head to cast an eye upon his questioning brother, and smiled with a cocky screw you look that often led to epic fights with his own kin.

  Old timers had established the Savage Souls OMC in the sixties. Justice had risen through the ranks immediately after his full-initiation that followed a one-year pledge phase. He claimed the presidency within a few years—although some claimed it was a violent coup that desecrated club honor and tradition.

  After he seized office, a sect known as the “blood brothers” arose when Justice recruited his actual family to join him in the Savage Nation. Five of his six brothers pledged the OMC and served in leadership roles at the national headquarters in Mystic, Colorado. Outside the national headquarters, the other Savage Souls chapters were divided in their loyalty and acceptance of Justice’s strong-armed takeover within the fringe society. What was unanimous among every single Souls’ chapter though, was the fear invoked by the blood brothers.

  He slapped a massive palm down against the thick leather cut Mercy donned. His front patch read Secretary, but he also served as the family patriarch. “We’re out a quarter million bucks, and a stash of high-grade weapons that would’ve doubled it. If I gotta chase down a dead man’s lies, then that’s what I’ll do.”

  “Just looks like a trap, Bro,” Mercy emphasized.

  Father of four daughters, Mercy, the retired Air Force Lieutenant, and his wife planned to leave the Savage Nation once finances returned to stable. Private school tuition and his daughter’s cancer treatments had sent his military nest egg into a spiral of high debts and low credit. His caution had often saved Justice—and today he was extra cautious.

  “It’s an abandoned field. Except for that active bird over there.” Justice’s index finger waved in a wide, looping circle to send the others into the airfield and begin searching for Rocky Jones.

  Justice’s eight hundred pound bike idled toward the dark olive painted Bell JetRanger helicopter. Its dual blades swept in slow, regular arcs, but the whirl wasn’t revved for take off. A brother biker waved an arm with excitement, and Justice clutched a gear to quicken the pace.

  “What the fuck happened?” the old biker asked.

  The pilot’s head had exploded inside the cockpit. Justice drop kicked his stand and rested the V-twin on its peg. He lifted the door opposite the spackling of blood and brain. The name embroidered on his leather bomber jacket read Rocky Jones. A Colt Model 1911 lay harmless in his lap. Taped to the windshield was an envelope marked with Savage Souls on the outside flap. Justice snatched it.

  Pissed that the coward had offed himself before he could, Justice ripped jagged tears in the envelope with a hard-skinned finger. A brass key fell into his palm.

  “That shit addressed to us?” Mercy asked.

  Unfolding the letter, Justice narrowed his brow to read the cursive script.

  I knew you’d come for me too. Didn’t know who Ricky Geneti was dealing with. The twenty grand he paid me is in the locker—key enclosed. His address is listed below. Please accept my apologies, and leave my family out of it.

  Sincerely,

  Rocky Jones, Captain (retired)

  United States Army, 1st Calvary Division

  Vietnam Veteran.

  Chapter 6

  The yellow Honda Civic sputtered across to enter onto Highway 578. Abigail stretched her five-foot-ten frame across the console to shove the passenger’s side window down. Air conditioning hadn’t been repaired in the clunker since it went on the blink two years ago—she couldn’t afford it Blasts of wind from oncoming traffic whipped against her left shoulder and swirled hair around her face.

  Ricky Geneti’s condo in White Tiger Estates wasn’t far from where she’d just stopped for gas and directions. Sweat beaded across her angular, messed-up face, but all she felt was the pressure of time against her spirit. Time was running out to discover who had murdered her son. Whoever Geneti had stolen that money from was associated with the bikers that had attacked them, and she aimed to find out.

  All that aside, the most important element for Abigail that day was her appointment with the funeral home director. She still had to bury Jack. Yes, the pressure of time leaned heavy against her soul.

  She tried mashing her mangled hair into place before she turned the corner that led into the new community. She didn’t look great but that couldn’t be helped. The settlement of buildings wasn’t gated, and a far cry from the opulence Ricky had tried to make it sound like. She puttered through and quickly spotted his upstairs apartment. She parked across the lot, and hoofed it over to unit number 2021.

  The hollow core exterior door only required a few shoves before she was in and free to rummage through his things. Abigail didn’t waste time tossing items around like an inexperienced cat burglar—she went to his computer. Simple-minded, despite his self-proclaimed genius—he’d never changed his passwords since she set them up years ago.

  “Okay, asshole lets see what you’ve done.”

  His Mac Air Pro had every text message catalogued—good thing he was too stupid to delete the good stuff. Strings of communications between him and some guy named Rocky Jones laid out a plan to steal weapons once some motorcycle club paid him the money.

  “Hell, gotta give him credit for having the brains to think of it and the balls to pull it off—almost.”

  The laptop’s images clicked and switched screens as rapidly as her fingers commanded them. She sto
pped at a string of messages from two unknown numbers. A Google of the area code showed someone in Custer County, Colorado and in Sonoma County, California were dick deep in setting up this deal.

  The final text message thread turned her gut.

  [last chance motherfucker]

  [I got my little boy with me. You wouldn’t dare]

  [are you returning our money or not]

  [no. fuck off]

  Abigail copied and pasted as much of the content as possible and sent an e-mail to herself from Ricky’s account. She erased the sent message, and then tried to delete as many others as possible.

  “Where’s the money, you prick?” she blurted aloud.

  She searched his system for a bank account or safety deposit box—nothing popped up. Traipsing through his two-bedroom efficiency apartment, she looked in the usual places. Her heart leapt into her throat when she spotted an old stuffed teddy bear tossed into a corner of the spare bedroom. That was it—no furniture, toys, nothing. Ricky’s bedroom didn’t fare much better. Cheap rented-looking furniture pieces, nothing under the beds or in the closets. Her mind caught fire with anger over what he’d done to her son for the sake of money he’d probably already lost.

  “Tear the place apart, but find the money.”

  Who the fuck was that?

  Abigail’s heart stopped for a moment—actually, more than a moment. She peered down the hall and saw a leather cut swing over tattered denims. The bikers. She panicked and padded a small circle in the corner of the guest bedroom. They’d find her no matter where she hid. She willed herself to calm down—Jack still had to be buried.

  “Rage, you take apart that computer. The rest of you take a room and go through everything. I mean every fucking scrap of paper.” The voice that shook her wasn’t loud—but it was in command.

  She struggled to relax her mind to either consider or create options for survival. No idea what to do but bend down in the closet corner. She heard the mash of heavy footfalls against the cheap industrial carpet just outside the bedroom. Her lungs filled with air to scream as she saw silver-ringed fingers slap the door to shove it open.