Among the Chaos: Book 2 of the Soldiers of Chaos MC Series (16 page)

"You're not really giving me a choice here kid," he responded.

"No I’m not," she agreed.

"You sure you can handle it?" He questioned.

"We'll soon see won’t we?" She replied.

She’d have to handle it. It was the only way to keep Reaper in the club, keep him alive and keep her brother’s safe.

"I guess we will," he called out to her back as she walked towards the main gates.

Nikki heard the bikes rolling up and the gates opened. Rock and Case rolled in with some of the other brothers in tow. Nikki approached them but Rock shook his head at her. They hadn't caught up with the car. She made her way out to the front as flashing red and blue lights approached. Two marked cars appeared and the uniforms got out herding the bikers away from the body and setting up a marked off area around Rat. Thirty seconds later Alex's unmarked vehicle pulled up to the scene and Rachael quickly took over giving the uniforms instructions.

Alex looked over Rat briefly before he approached Nikki. She couldn’t help but notice that both Tex and Trace simultaneously gravitated toward her.

“Hey,” he greeted her awkwardly.

She really couldn’t expect much else. She’d destroyed a part of his life and instead of being able to walk away and forget about it, she just kept dragging him right back into the mess.

“Hey Alex
,” she replied just as quietly.

“What happened?”

“We were all inside having a party. A couple of the prospects made patch. This car horn started beeping incessantly and some of the brothers headed to the front. When they got out here Rat was there, like that.”

“Did anyone see the car?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so,” she looked down the road away from him.

The lies she told to him were endless and she knew he saw threw all of them.

“Where were you when it happened?”
he questioned her.

“I was inside the clubhouse, in my room.”

He nodded his head at her and turned his gaze to Tex and Trace both hovering within earshot of their awkward conversation.

“And where were you two?” Alex’s tone was stiff and very unfriendly.

“We were both in the clubhouse,” Trace replied.

“In her room
, with her,” Tex added.

Alex’s eyes went wide before he closed off completely. Nikki shot Tex a dark look. He coul
d be such an asshole sometimes.

“Right, well don’t go anywhere we may need to question you later,” Alex stepped into cop mode.

What else did she expect? She lied to the man, cheated on him, left him and only called on him when there was a dead body or some info she needed. Alex Winter was the biggest regret of her life but only because she wronged a good man in so many ways and he just didn’t deserve that.

Alex and Rachael along with a few uniforms interviewed the crowd. They weren’t going to get anything out of them and they knew it. It was the usual drill and she knew Alex only put up with it for her. She often wondered why he just didn’t leave her hanging. Then he would turn and look at her and she would see exactly why he came whenever she called. He still carried that look in his eyes, the one that said he cared about her far more than he wished he did.

One of the brothers led them into the clubhouse to speak with the women but Nikki stayed outside the gate. She stood in a dark corner and watched the Medical Examiner go over the scene with a clinical attachment she wished she could muster. The more she stared at Rat’s lifeless mutilated body the worse the hurt and anger got.

Bridges was trying to destroy them and this was only the beginning of what he had in store for them she was sure. They could no longer waste time with defensive measures. The club needed to act and it needed to act quickly. If King wasn’t going to sanction action then they might just have to go behind his back and take action themselves. The idea of spurning both her Pres. and the one solid father figure she’d had in her life didn’t sit well with her. The more Nikki went over it the more she saw there was no other way than to go to war.

They needed to start with what they knew. What they knew was Lenny, the Niners, Jason Black and Bridges were all connected. The drugs were connected to him as well although this wasn’t something she could share without divulging her father’s little secret. That bastard had just made shit so much more difficult for her. She hated lying to the boys and hiding shit from the club went against the grain of everything she’d been taught.

She could feel the rumble of disquiet deep inside her and knew the warning signs. She needed to detach or she was going to let the dark from the box and that would not be good for anyone. She stayed while they carted Rat away and closed up the scene. The uniforms left and all that remained was some crime tape and some bloodied marks on the ground were Rat’s body had lain. She had been staring at that spot so hard and for so long she lost a grip on everything around her.

“Hey Nikki,” Alex’s voice shocked her out of her frozen state.

“Is there anything at all you
wanna tell me about this, about anything?” His eyes pleaded with her for some sign of hope that she still needed him, that she would still confide in him.

“No. Nothing,” she replied her voice devoid of emotion.

He sighed and nodded his head.

“I am really sorry Nikki,” his eyes flicked to where Rat had been as he spoke.

“So am I Alex. More than you’ll ever know,” with that quiet admission from her he walked away.

As she watched his retreating form she hoped that he found something good to replace all this bad she’d brought into his life.




The high that had been running around the clubhouse on their return had been contagious. Brodie and Jay had been the heroes of the day. They earned their patches and everyone had been revelling in the celebrations that followed. He and Trace had been loaded on a high and they were going to get their girl tonight. How quickly things could go from one extreme to the other?

Tex’s insides were a mash of wild feelings from blood boiling anger to gut wrenching sadness. He’d lost a brother tonight and he’d lost him in the worst way. Rat had nicked off to his sister’s house to drop off some cash to her. He promised he’d be back within the hour. He’d come back alright just not in the way Tex had expected. As the image of his brother’s mutilated body came to mind he realised that this thing with Bridges was beyond business. It was personal now, personal and brutal. This was the tipping point for him, for all of them. Bridges was now priority numero uno. What happened tonight was a declaration of war and if anyone questioned that fact he would personally have them admitted to the nearest psyche ward for assessment.

The cops were long gone and Rat’s body had been carted off to the morgue. The women were out in the main room of the clubhouse except for Nikki of course. She sat beside him in silence her blue-grey eyes slowly moving into dark and stormy territory. He could feel her slowly disappearing into herself as her anger grew. They needed to get her out of here as soon as possible.

“We can’t cool our heels on this shit any longer. We know who’s behind this shit and we need to hit back,” Rock was throwing his opinion out there for everyone to hear.

Tex
didn't need to hear it he was well past being on board with that shit. In fact he was so far passed that shit he was already planning his next move. They needed to get a bead on Jason Black and hope to god he would lead them to Bridges. Speaking of which, the piece of paper that held his most recent locations was burning a massive hole in his pocket. Alex had come through as promised delivering them a list of all the places Jason Black had showed up in the last few weeks. As soon as they were done here he was starting on the list.

"Before we go hitting anything we need intel. We don’t know shit about this dude and he seems to know a shit load about us," Case added.

"This guy has got to be on someone's radar. What about the PD? Ace you get anything out of
Winter?" King asked.

"Not a lot. The PD knows about as much as we do. Bridges has links to the
Niners and Jason Black is his right hand man. They’ve had trouble getting anything on Black and getting him to lead them to Bridges is near on impossible.”

“He’s given us a couple of starting points to work from,”
Tex interrupted causing Nikki to frown at him.

“Well start now and keep me informed.”

“Just in case he’s not being as helpful as he could you work that skirt Rock. Seems to me that access to her info is directly related to access to her panties. You get in there man and good,” King’s comment got a couple of sniggers.

“You two,” he gestured towards Brodie and Jay, “stay here in case that asshole comes back and the rest of you take your women home get them sorted. We got shit to deal with tomorrow.”

Everyone piled out of the room and off in their respective directions.

King pulled
him and Trace aside.

“Black is to be your one an
d only focus starting tonight and I do not want Nikki anywhere near this. If this guy has even an inkling that she killed his brother,” King’s words broke off but Tex knew exactly what he was saying, “That man has gotta have a weakness. Find it and use it. We need to find Bridges and end this before anymore Soldiers end up lying dead in the dirt.”

Tex
couldn’t argue with that plan. Cut off the head and the body will fall. The sooner they removed Bridges the better.

“Now take that girl home and get on it,” King said as he gestured to Nikki.

She was standing in the middle of the open gates staring at the patch of dirt where Rat had lain. The more distance they put between her and this place right now the better.



Nikki woke to the sound of someone in the house. It was still dark outside. Something about the noise told her it wasn’t Tex and Trace. It wasn’t the sound of someone moving confidently through their home. It was softer, more hesitant. She reached under mattress searching for her gun. A creak sounded in the hallway close to her door. Nikki slipped out of bed and tiptoed across her bedroom to the door. As she reached for the handle it turned. She took several quick steps back and raised her weapon.

The door opened slowly and a dark menacing shape filled the doorway. A monster. Its eyes glowed like flickering flames in the dark and she felt herself drawn towards it.

"Come," it called to her beckoning her forward.

That dark part of her told her to go but she resisted it. A low growl emanated from the dark mass and Nikki's finger went straight for the trigger of her gun.

"You know this is what you want. Stop fighting it and come to me," the monsters arms went out as if offering her an embrace.

Her body leaned toward the darkness and unconsciously she stepped forward.

"You can’t resist me," it told her.

Nikki dragged her eyes away from the monster momentarily looking down at her moving feet. The sight knocked her out of her trance and dragged her back to reality. She could resist it and she would. Her gaze came back up and she squeezed the trigger of her Glock firing a single round into the monster's chest.

The shape flickered like a faulty television picture then suddenly took the shape of a man. She recognised the silhouette immediately. Cole. He fell backwards onto the floor and Nikki felt a surge of panic.

"Cole," she cried out to him as she ran to his fallen body.

She stared down at his face as he lay there black blood flowing from the wound.

"I'm so sorry Cole," she sobbed over him.

She watched as the darkness disappeared from his eyes and those beautiful otherworldly green eyes became unburdened.

"It wasn't supposed to be like this," he croaked as he reached up to touch her face.

The moment his fingertips touched her skin something happened. It was like a jump in time and suddenly she was on the floor in his place with him crouching over her. She couldn’t move her limbs and as she looked down at the gaping hole in her chest and the inky blood pooling on the floor around her, she knew this was how it would end.

H
e smiled softly down at her, "this is the only way it can be, for now. But don’t worry we'll be together again soon."

He leant down and kissed her gently on her mouth.

"My Angel," the words whispered reverently from his lips.

Nikki woke with a start. The lingering feeling of lips on hers and Cole’s words echoing in her ears had her on edge. She glimpsed movement to her right and rolled from the bed grabbing her gun from the bedside table. She landed on the floor in kneeling position her gun trained on her curtains shifting in the breeze. She took a deep breath and shook her head. Bloody dreams had her jumping at shadows or in this case moving curtains.