The Rising Sons Motorcycle Club (25 page)

Another one came through the front door. Clyde grabbed the muzzle of the rifle and threw it over the intruder’s head. He yanked the man back with the gun across his throat. Sam was prepared for the next man to come through. Raven saw Pitt grab a blanket to try and help Hoser put out the fire. All he was managing to do was add oxygen and blow the flames higher.

Raven called to him. “Leave it, Pitt. You and Walburg load up and cover the kitchen!” She ran toward the front wall of the bar and shoved a table forward until it slammed into the cigarette machine, shattering the glass. She pulled herself onto it and looked out the high windows to the right of the front door.

She saw the headlights of what looked like a dozen bikes pointed toward the bar, lighting it up like a battlefield. She turned back to the weapons on the table. Captain rushed out of the bathroom, looking around blankly at the scene in front of him.

“Captain, get a fucking rifle and get up here!” she snarled.

He didn’t need to be told twice. He grabbed another AR-15 that sat just outside of the dying flames and leapt onto the table alongside Raven. There were flashes of gunfire next to the motorcycles. Raven trained her shotgun on the closest flashes.

She knew the shotgun wouldn’t be good for anything more than fifteen or twenty feet away, but even if she could draw some fire away from the front door, it would give those near it a chance to return fire. Captain stood to her left. He brought the gun up, and they fired at the same time.

The windows turned to shards and dust before them as they returned fire. Raven tried to count how many people were attacking, but the lights of the motorcycles obscured her view. She fired the shotgun until it was empty, then hopped down from the table. As she ran for the boxes of shells, she saw that the fire on the stage had grown, and Clyde was still wrestling with the intruder. Sam was still guarding the door, and as Raven opened a box of shells, she saw him drop to his knees.

He dove away from the doorway, but Raven saw the tear in his jeans. Blood soaked the wound in an instant. Raven ran for him, grabbing his forearm as he grabbed hers. Raven’s heart worked harder than it ever had as she dragged Sam out of harm’s way. As soon as he was clear, she let go and pulled her handgun free.

As she did, men came through the front door. She brought the gun up and fired as they stormed the bar. Sparks flashed, more glass shattered, and her hearing dropped away. Raven was in the heat of battle, relying on her brothers to protect everything that the Rising Sons had.

Captain turned from the window as the men poured inside. He trained the rifle with careful aim, firing rounds at the men coming through the trashed doorway.

Raven moved backward, grabbing extra magazines as she did. The Rising Sons began to come toward each other, firing on the group coming through the door. She turned to make sure there wasn't anyone coming through the kitchen. When she saw that it was clear, she focused all her attention on the front door. The flames were pushing the intruders away once they came through.

Bullets were hitting their targets, but the men weren’t going down.
Kevlar
, Raven realized. They had body armor. She saw Clyde still engaged in hand-to-hand combat. He finally knocked the man down and didn’t waste any time grabbing another attacker around the neck.

Pitt and Hoser had given up on the flames and opened fire. As the Rising Sons backed up toward the kitchen, they navigated around the second fire. Raven caught some shrapnel in her left arm. She looked to see how bad it was. Blood was running down her arm, but Raven didn’t think it would be bad.

Pitt, on the other hand, was bad.

He’d caught a bullet in the neck. Raven saw the blood shoot from the wound in a pulsing, arterial spray. His firing hand dropped in an instant, and Pitt’s eyes opened wide. He sank to the floor. The force against the Rising Sons was too strong and close for anyone to look after him.

It made Raven’s heart ache to keep moving backward and leave Pitt, but she knew they were all in grave danger. They began to funnel into the kitchen. Raven heard her brother through the chaos.

“Clear back here.”

Raven was the last one through the kitchen, except for Clyde. He was still fighting. Raven knew that he could handle himself, but she was afraid he’d be overpowered. She considered diving behind the bar and trying to flank them, but when she caught sight of the grenades in one man’s hand, she had no choice but to leave Clyde behind.

She turned and ran into the kitchen. “Everyone take cover!” she screamed, but the last word was swallowed up by the three explosions, one on top of the other. She felt the blast on her back, and it pushed her farther than she had anticipated.

Raven slammed headfirst into a stainless steel cabinet. Her ears rang as someone grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to her unsteady feet. She felt a throb on her forehead, and when blood dripped down into her eye, she realized what it was.

The arm pulled her toward the back of the bar and out the door. She stood there next to the dumpster as a cloud of hot dust followed her out and surrounded her from the waist down. She turned and realized that part of the building had collapsed. What was happening didn’t really hit her, and before it could, the hand grabbed her and pulled her away.

With one eye closed and her balance in shambles, Raven followed and focused all her energy on staying upright and moving away from the building. She saw flashes in front of her as Rising Sons fired their guns back toward the bar. She reached with her free hand behind her back, but couldn’t find the handgun there.

As her hearing came back at a crawl, she heard motorcycles in the distance and the sounds of gunfire ceased. “Are they gone?”

Someone spoke, but Raven couldn’t tell who. “Yeah. They all just peeled out after the explosion.”

She tried to look up and see their face. Dancing yellow light lit him up, but his identity wasn’t registering with Raven. She turned to see the source of light and saw that Los Bandoleros was spewing flames from one side. Her heart sank as low as it could go.

She had failed to protect the bar. The attack had come, like everyone knew it would, but it had been harder than anyone anticipated. Raven had expected handguns and shotguns, not Molotov cocktails and grenades. If it was a biker gang, they were well-connected and out of state.

Raven realized she was sitting on the banks of the dry river, looking back at the bar. She saw lights flashing in the distance and stood up. Her outlaw instinct had pulled her to her feet, but she realized it was the fire department coming from town. Highway 43 wasn’t exactly busy, but one passing motorist would be enough to call in a fire on the outskirts of town.

She looked around. Jenny and Tanner were farther up the embankment, and she was curled into his body as he held her. Captain was standing right next to her, his own head wound coating one side of his face in drying blood.

Hoser was lying flat on the ground. He had a belt cinched around his bad leg. Raven thought she saw another few wounds on him, but it was hard to tell. As the sirens got closer to the burning building, Raven realized those were the only people who had made it out of the bar.

When Trask pulled up, the fire department had the blaze all but extinguished. Smoke and steam rose, filling the air with the acrid scent of burnt plastic, wood, and chemicals. He pulled his Harley around to the back of the parking lot, past the damaged and burnt bikes of those who had fought. He saw Raven and the rest of the survivors and parked the Harley, helping Hope off the back.

Raven came down into the riverbank and met him in the middle. “Five. We lost five.” She looked down, feeling the weight of every single life. She had been in charge, and the events that led to those five deaths had been hers to dictate.

She couldn’t see any trace of emotion in Trask’s face. “And the other side?”

“Three, plus the one we have on the other side of the hill. He’s hurt, but he’s still conscious.” Her words and eyes were colder than Hell. The wound on Raven’s head had almost stopped bleeding, but she showed no signs of pain. She thought to herself that the physical pain would come later, but the emotional pain would last far longer.

Trask nodded. “Lead the way.”

Raven limped up the hill to where Hoser, Tanner, and Jenny were sitting. She walked past them to the spot where Captain had dragged one of the attackers. So far, he hadn’t given up any information. She was glad that Captain had thought far enough ahead to look for survivors. Her mind was on Clyde, Sam, Pitt, and Walburg. Trigger was the one who hurt her the most. She hadn’t even seen him during the fight. It had all happened so fast, and she just couldn’t keep track of him. Gunner’s blood brother was dead, and Raven ached for him.

Over the hill, Trask looked down at the man. He had a severe shoulder wound. His breathing was rapid, and he was drifting in and out of consciousness. When Trask put his heavy boot on the man’s gunshot wound, he snapped out of any hint of delirium.

“Fuck!” He tried to fight, but Trask held him down with no trouble. The man’s strength was all but gone.

“That pain will be the least of your worries if you don’t tell me who the fuck sent you. I’ll personally see that you heal, just so I can break you over and over. If you think I’m fucking with you… Hope?” Trask looked behind him. She came up. There was pain in her eyes as she saw the man on the ground, but she knew where her alliance was. “This beautiful thing is a doctor, and we will drag you to my house, and I will chain you in a basement while she gets you well enough to break.”

“Get fucked, dickspit.”

Trask dug his heel in harder. “Get talkin’, shitstain.”

Captain tossed Trask the guy’s wallet. “He ain’t too bright, I can tell you that much.”

Trask laughed. “You brought your wallet with you on a raid? What? Were you gonna hit the In and Out on your way back to…” Trask dug out the man’s I.D. “…Las Vegas?”

“Fuck off. Let me die in peace, asshole.”

“Erick Mendoza, twenty-seven years old, Las Vegas, Nevada. You wanna tell me what you’re doing five hours from home, Erick?” Trask stayed calm, but his veins were bulging. His heart was surging.

The man didn’t speak, even when Trask pushed into his shoulder.

“All right. I can admire loyalty, believe me. Tell you what I’m gonna do, though, Erick. I am gonna make sure you heal up nicely. Then I’m gonna let you go on your merry fuckin’ way.”

Raven had no idea what Trask’s plan was. She turned back to see the first police officers arriving. She wanted to say something before they came to investigate. Captain must have seen them, too, because he headed downhill to intercept.

“You know what I’m gonna do, Erick?”
 
Trask’s voice was dead calm. “I’m gonna have a ball. Get me some new clothes, eat some fine dinners, maybe even take a trip somewhere. Mexico. Now, I know that you don’t care much what I do, but it won’t be
me
doing it. It’ll be you. When word gets out that half of the Rising Sons’ money is gone, what do you think your boss is gonna think, huh, Erick? He’s gonna think you skipped out on him with a shitload of money.”

Trask dug into the wallet and pulled out a picture. “This your family, Erick? These your two little boys? Take a moment and think what he’ll do to your family when he puts the pieces together. Whether you’re alive or dead, they don’t stand a chance. You give me a name, though, and we’ll make sure that ambulance takes you wherever your heart desires.”

Raven watched the man. He was spitting up from the pain, but there was something in his eyes. He didn’t speak, which meant he was thinking. As he gasped for every breath, his hand gripping as hard as he could on Trask’s boot, Raven knew he would crack. Trask had hit him hard.

“Maldonado.” Erick said it like he had already been killed. There was pain, as well as loyalty in his voice. It killed him to say the name, and he knew it probably meant death by one hand or another.

“See? Not so hard, but I need a little more from you, Erick. How ‘bout you tell me about Maldonado? Tell me a bedtime story.” Trask’s voice got deeper, angrier.

“Carlos Maldonado. He just hired a bunch of bikers. I don’t even know this club. I don’t ride with no club, man. Twenty grand to ride and attack, that’s all I know. Jesus Christ, let me fuckin’ go.”