XANDER (The Caine Brothers Book 2) (11 page)

“Make sure everyone’s there,” Mel said, his eyes hard. “We’ll need them.”

“If Hank actually goes through with apologizing to Lily today, they’ll have opposing purposes. Things could get dicey,” Xander said.

“You two go find everyone,” Mel said. “We’ll finish up here and meet out on the street at noon.” He gestured to the street where Xander had parked.

Xander caught Dude’s attention and jerked his head in a let’s go gesture. As far as he knew they had fifteen or twenty guys at the rally. Tracking them down would be a challenge, though not nearly as bad as it would have been before cell phones. Score one for technology, even if it wasn’t as old-school as swaggering around and collecting your crew, jonesing for a fight.

Once they’d called everyone and told them where to be and when, Xander and Dude walked the area to get a lay of the land. The crowd had begun to filter in for the show and were wandering among the bikes and vendors. The grandstand stood at the back of the park, with Seawall Blvd at the front, and beyond that the beach and the gulf. On either side of the park were side streets loaded with bikes and people.

Xander recognized guys from local clubs, and several other Texas clubs. He knew what to expect from some of them, anyway, but he also saw colors from all kinds of unfamiliar clubs. The Ravagers weren’t popular, but they were respected as a one-percent club, as were the Huntsmen. When it came down to it, Xander hoped if a fight broke out they could keep it between the Huntsmen and Ravagers. If it spread, it could get out of hand fast.

As he and Dude walked, Xander kept a watch for Ravagers, and with each step he psyched himself up for the upcoming confrontation. It would be great if Lily would just tell Hank she was done with him and he’d accept it like a man, and everyone could go about their business. But the chances of that happening were exactly zero.

“No chance in hell Prez or Bug will let Lily walk away,” Dude said, echoing Xander’s thoughts.

“Nope. I already told Pixie we’d find a safe place for her and Lily.”

Dude nodded his approval. As they’d walked he’d become bigger. He stood straighter, his shoulders thrown back, hands fisted at his side, and he strutted. One thing about Dude, he never backed down from anything. Not that Xander did, either, he just didn’t embrace it the way Dude did.

At noon they headed toward the street. As they stepped off the sidewalk and between the bikes lining the street, Xander noticed Mel standing in a group surrounded by the most of the rest of the Huntsmen. He headed in that direction, but as he did he surveyed the rest of the scene. Titan caught his attention, since he was so hard to miss standing a head above everyone else, just like Dude. Xander had to assume the rest of the Ravagers followed in Titan’s wake.

Where was Pixie? She and Lily were small enough he’d never see them until he was right on them.

He and Dude met up with Mel and the guys just as Prez and the Ravagers muscled their way through the crowd. Much like a drop of soap in a puddle of oil, the intersection cleared as people around them sensed danger and impending bloodshed.

As the crowd moved around them, Xander spotted Pixie and Lily approaching from the opposite side of the street.

Mel and Prez faced off.

“Prez,” Mel said. “It’s good to see you.”

Prez spat, hitting the ground near Mel’s feet. “Not really. A couple of your boys did a job on Bug.”

Prez motioned over his shoulder for Bug to come forward. It had been a couple of days so the swelling had gone down some and the bruises had just started to change color, but he still had fresh stitches and basically looked like shit. Xander couldn’t help a satisfied smile, and Dude’s chuckle said he agreed.

“Looks like someone had an accident,” Mel said.

“Yeah, he plowed his face into someone’s fists,” Itch said somewhere behind Xander, followed by a wave of snickers.

“You and I had an agreement,” Prez said, stepping into Mel’s personal space and glaring into his face.

For Mel’s part, he kept a straight face and held Prez’s gaze. “We took a commission.”

“Against a Ravager. I guess peace isn’t that important to you, after all.”

Mel pulled himself up and something in his expression changed. His eyes turned hard as flint. “You know how I feel about men hitting their women. We’ve had this conversation before. We had an agreement.”

Prez just eyeballed Mel, staring him down, some silent visual duel passing between them. What the hell did those two have hiding in their past, anyway? Something to do with domestic violence, obviously, but what?

Whatever it was must have spawned the feud and subsequent truce, but the way things looked, things were about to blow.

Mel stood like a statue, glaring at Prez, whose nostrils flared and fingers twitched like he might throw a tantrum at any moment. But Mel didn’t move a muscle.

Prez blinked first. “That was between you and me.”

“Bug broke it and you did nothing about it, so that’s why we took the commission. The way I understand it, Bug was given a choice. Is he ready to fulfill his part of the deal?”

“Fuck, no. He ain’t apologizing for anything. Whatever’s between him and Lily is their business. You got no right getting between them. We don’t recognize your fucking vigilante justice.” Prez poked Mel in the chest as he continued, “You broke the peace, we didn’t, and now you’ll pay the price for that.”

Mel’s jaw twitched when Prez poked him, but he stood firm and took it. Xander respected his restraint. He didn’t think he could tolerate Prez poking him and ranting, spittle spraying as he spoke. Xander felt rather than witnessed Dude’s pissed off energy next to him.

“It
is
my business, Prez,” Lily said, stepping into the street and coming face to face with Prez and Hank. Pixie stepped up behind her sparing Xander a quick glance and smile before backing Lily up.

“Lily, baby,” Hank said. “You ready to come back to daddy?”

Xander cringed. Yuck.

Lily turned and despite the fact he had several inches on her, she managed to look down her nose at Hank. “No. I’m leaving. I’ve had enough of you.”

“Oh come on, baby. I didn’t mean it. You know I didn’t. I love you. I’d never hurt you on purpose,” Hank said.

“Gross.” Dude stood next to Xander watching the whole scene, editorializing. “She better not fall for that shit.”

Lily had a moment of hesitation at the pleading look on Hank’s face, but Pixie jabbed her in the ribs and she stood up taller. “No, Hank. I’m done.”

Hank’s pleading face morphed so fast into an ugly sneer that Xander didn’t realize what was happening until it had already started. Hank threw an open-handed slap across Lily’s face. Her head snapped to the side, and Hank pretty much lost it from there. “You stupid bitch. Nobody leaves me. You’re my wife. You belong to me and I’ll do whatever the hell I want to you, and you have to take it.”

By the time he spit the last words out, he was screeching and had managed to throw a couple of punches at Lily, landing one. Dude launched himself across the space to grab Hank by the hair and pull him off Lily, and that’s all it took for all hell to break loose.

Xander charged in, determined to get Pixie out of the way before he did anything else, but everyone closed in so quickly, he lost sight of her. He wedged his shoulder between a couple of guys, trying to get past them to find her, but before he could get through someone grabbed a handful of his hair and swung him around.

It was Titan.

“I’m gonna kick your ass,” he said.

Without further comment, he threw a punch. Xander managed to duck, and using the momentum plowed his shoulder into Titan’s gut. Titan let out an ‘oof’ and stumbled back a step, but otherwise seemed unaffected. He came at Xander like a herd of stampeding elephants, fists swinging wildly. One of them connected and Xander saw stars, but managed to stagger out of range.

At six feet, Xander was by no means short, but Titan still towered over him. Xander had spent enough time sparring with his little brother Colton to know fighting a taller opponent meant body shots. Xander shook his head to clear his vision, then closed the distance and got in a couple of good punches to the gut. All he could think about was getting Titan out of his way so he could find Pixie.

“Not today,” he said.

Titan’s belly was a washboard of muscle, so Xander threw a hook to the space just below Titan’s ribs on the left side. Titan bent sideways, favoring the area and bringing his head down into Xander’s range.

Xander threw a jab to Titan’s temple and the big guy crumpled, slamming his head on the curb of the sidewalk.

Xander shook his hand out. “Fuck, you have a hard head.”

He spun to find himself in the middle of a battlefield. Fists flew, blood spattered, and grunts and curses filled the air. He couldn’t see anything but the writhing mass of bodies.

Where had Pixie gone? And Lily?

Xander shoved his way past two guys beating each other bloody, looking for Dude. Mel and Prez were going at it a few feet away. It looked evenly matched, though the rage on Prez’s face was disturbing, even for a street fight. Xander ducked a wild punch and saw Chico held his own with a Ravager named Dallas. Itch and Tater looked pretty damn happy taking on a couple of guys Xander didn’t know.

In the middle of the action, Xander found Dude using a Ravager as a punching bag. When Dude saw Xander, he grinned ear to ear. He was in his element.

“You seen Pixie?” Xander yelled. “Or Lily?”

“No. Before I could get to Hank he weaseled away, so I just grabbed the first Ravager I could get my hands on.”

Dude threw another punch and put the Ravager out cold. Dude dropped the limp body to the street. “I’ll help you find the girls.”

Dude spun to head for the sidewalk and Xander followed, but Dude came up short after a couple of steps and Xander ran into him.

“What the hell?”

He stepped to the side to see what had stopped Dude, only to find Hank with a knife in his hand and maniacal look in his eyes.

“I’m gonna kill you,” Hank said.

Xander stepped between them. “Hold on, Hank. Be reasonable. You don’t want to kill anyone.” He didn’t like the glassy crazy in Hank’s eyes.

“Fuck you, Killer. I’m going to kill you both. You fucked me up, and fucked my marriage. I’m going to kill both you fuckers.”

“Big vocabulary you’ve got there,” Dude said. “Why don’t you drop the knife and we can fight like men.”

“Fuck you, freak,” Hank said.

Hank feinted to the left, slashing as he went. Xander put his arm up to protect his face and earned himself a stinging slice. The fact the knife cut through his leather sleeve like butter freaked him out a little.

As small as he was, Hank moved fast. Before Xander could correct from being cut, Hank leaned right and ducked around Xander to stab at Dude.

Hank’s triumphant hoot didn’t bode well, and Xander spun to find the knife hilt-deep in Dude’s left side.

Dude looked down at it, surprised to find the knife sprouting from his body. Blood bloomed all around it as Dude went down to his knees.

Hank’s hysterical laugh filled the air as he pulled the knife out and jammed it in one more time before Xander came out of his surprised stupor and plowed Hank to the ground. Dude collapsed right next to them, the blankness of unconsciousness—or was it death?—in his eyes.

Xander lost it. Hank had killed the bigger than life, indestructible Dude, and he’d pay for that.

The next thing Xander knew, he was being cuffed. As they hauled him to a car, he noticed paramedics surrounding Dude and Hank. Emergency medical personnel were clumped around other bodies lying in the street, while cops cuffed those still on their feet.

Xander scanned the crowd, but still didn’t see Pixie or Lily. Hopefully they’d left when the fight broke out.

As the cops shoved him into a vehicle, he glanced to the side and saw a paramedic pull a tarp over Mel’s face. Xander slumped in the seat.

At the police station Xander went through the motions of being booked without much interest. When they allowed him to use the phone, he called Hunter.

They put him in a holding cell with some of the other guys, where he collapsed onto a bench.

“That was epic,” Itch said, obviously still high on the adrenaline buzz from the fight.

Chico sat next to Xander. “I thought you were dead.”

“Mel’s dead,” Xander said. “So’s Dude.”

“Fuck,” Tater said. The rest of the Huntsmen in the cell fell silent.

“Who’d you kill, Killer?” Wrench asked.

“What?”

“You got enough blood on you, you had to have killed someone,” Itch said.

Xander looked down at his hands. His knuckles were obviously bruised, even under the layer of blood—Hank’s blood. His clothes were covered in it, too. He didn’t remember killing anyone, and he hadn’t been anywhere near Hank’s body when the cops cuffed him. But he must have.

Xander shrugged. He didn’t want to talk about it. He imagined Dude grinning and saying, ‘guess you finally earned your nickname.’

Over the next couple of hours some of the guys in the holding cell were bailed out, leaving one at a time. When the cop called for Chico, Xander stopped him.

“Can you find Gracie and give her a message?”

“Yeah. What’s her number?”

Xander scrubbed his hands down his face, then stared into his lap. “I never got it.”

Chico grunted—a sound which communicated what an idiot Xander was—and when Xander glanced up at him, Chico looked like he’d rather pull off his own fingernails than deal with the Ravagers again, but he said, “What do you want me to tell her?”

“Tell her to meet me at the Outpost tomorrow night.”

Chico nodded and left.

When Hunter and Allison finally arrived, there were only a handful of guys left in the cell.

“Hey, Caine,” the cop said. Xander looked up as the cop unlocked the cell. “You made bail.”

Hunter looked every bit the rich and powerful CEO he was, dressed in a suit that probably cost as much as some people paid for their monthly mortgage, his blond hair sleek, and an air about him that said don’t fuck with me or I’ll crush you. Allison looked like the consummate lawyer in her own suit and heels, her long blonde hair pulled back to look professional.