It fell to the ground with a dull thud, and The Fallen surged into action.
It would have been amazing to watch, the way Axe-Man pulled a man’s arm straight, turned his back on him with it still in his grip and broke it in two over his shoulder. How Dane stepped up to the man straddling Aaron and snapped his neck with a single, easy twist of two hands on his head. While the man slumped to the side of him, Aaron reached for the bloody, discarded gun and shot Tyre in the knee before he could attack Wrath from behind like he’d clearly been aiming to do. Wrath was preoccupied by pounding in Gauntlet’s face.
It would have been amazing to watch if Macho hadn’t made a grab for me.
“Fuckin’ bitch,” he growled as he carted me into his arms, ignoring the way I struggled. “Let’s see what your old man thinks about you interferin’ in club shit, huh?”
He started jogging with me over his shoulder toward the gleam of bikes in the dark just as Eugene’s shotgun boomed through the air again, and he shouted for everyone to stop where they fuckin’ were.
Macho didn’t listen.
He swung a leg over the bike and settled me over his lap facing him. “You make me crash, I’ll kill you and bury your body. Tell Rooster you ran away again.”
Behind me, boots pounded against the earth as the Raiders, those who could, ran from Eugene and The Fallen.
“I didn’t do anything,” I protested. “You just startled me while I was taking out the garbage––”
“Shut the fuck up, bitch,” he growled before biting my ear so savagely I cried out, and a moment later, the warmth of blood slid down my neck. “You can explain yourself to fuckin’ Rooster.”
My heart dropped into my belly, churning in acid.
Because I knew what Rooster would do if he thought I’d turned on him, especially for The Fallen.
He’d kill me.
Macho draggedme off the back of his bike by the hair. I fell to my knees in the dirt and tried to find my feet as he pulled me forward across the lot and up the shallow stairs of the porch. Instead of opening the screen door, he threw me through the warped mesh, so I fell straight through the door and landed on the jagged screen, the edges cutting into my forearms.
“Found her,” he hollered, pounding his chest as he released some kind of war cry. “Found her for you.”
I didn’t mention that Rooster knew where I was––that he’dsentme to work there. It wouldn’t do any good. But I hoped he would put an end to the violence, turning the air to static, because I knew I’d be at its pinnacle.
Instead, the boots that thudded heavily––unevenly––over the floor were not the black motorcycle boots embossed with roosters on either side like my father’s.
They were a cracked leather brown cowboy boots attached to black jeans that covered one wiry leg and one amputated at the knee, a prosthetic replacing the calf and foot he’d lost to a roadside bomb overseas.
Hazard was back.
I looked up with my heart lodged in my throat, throbbing so hard I gagged as my eyes locked with his pale grey ones.
“If it isn’t my wife,” he drawled in that prairie accent. “On her knees where she belongs once again.”
Time had been unfairly good to Hazard. He had always been thin but strong, a corded rope of steel leaning forward at the hips like he was walking into a perpetual wind, but age had put some more meat on his bones, filling out the wide shoulders and long arms. His hair was mostly grey, underlaid with black so it looked almost metallic and complemented the cold grey of his eyes. Even though there were harsh lines beside his eyes and mouth, he was still handsome enough to pull women whenever he wanted.
Including the one pressed to his side, his arm wrapped around her waist with his fingertips stuck down the front of her jean shorts.
The face of evil never had an ugly face to match, and it was one of life’s greatest injustices.
“She fuckin’ threw a bag’a garbage at Geyser,” one of the men behind me tattled with serious glee.
“Protectin’ The Fallen bastards,” another, Meatloaf, added.
They were rabid dogs slavering at the mouth for blood.
“I wasn’t,” I said quickly, pulling myself to my knees and then trying to stand before Macho’s foot planted between my shoulders and sent me sprawling. “My boss sent me outside to take out the garbage. When I saw people fighting, I panicked. I don’t know what half the club even looks like!”
“Bullshit,” Macho spat, planting his foot in my back so I couldn’t get up.
“Tyre got shot in the fuckin’ leg, Geyser in the arm, and one’a them killed Oscar.”
