Biker Justice: A Skull Kings MC Novella (11 page)

“It’s Phoenix. There’s crime everywhere,” I said reassuringly. But my hands grew numb on the steering wheel.

The street of the drop house was blocked off. It was probably not a coincidence. I had to pull over and park on the next street over. Wordlessly, Aspen and I got out of my car and started walking. Lookie-loos lined the sidewalks, gossiping with their heads pressed together. I heard the word “drive-by” and exchanged panicked looks with Aspen. We picked up our pace.

“Oh god,” Aspen said suddenly. “Logan.”

I sought him out immediately. He stood a few yards away, easy to spot in his gear amidst a sea of suits and uniforms. Without thinking, I rushed at the barricades. A police officer came out of nowhere and shined his flashlight in my face.

“Whoa!” he barked. “You better take a step back! This is a crime scene!”

Logan looked up from the commotion and saw me. He excused himself from a conversation with two other men and hurried toward us.

“Hey,” he called out to the officer. “I know these two. Give us a minute.” He spoke in a tone I’d never heard before, authoritative and commanding. It definitely made the police officer back away.

“Where’s Liam?” Aspen asked. “What happened?” She strained to look over Logan’s shoulder. Shattered glass glittered in the street, and in the middle of it all—

“Is that a dead body?” I choked out.

Logan turned his head to look at the lumpy, sheet-covered mass. “Oh,
no.
I mean, yes, it’s a dead body, but not one of us.”

Admittedly, I was relieved, but I still felt sick. I’d never seen a dead body before. I gulped.

Logan put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed, pulling me back to the present. “Listen. You guys can’t be here. The police got here before the Kings, so there’s nothing you can do.”

“Where are they?” Aspen asked.

“They went to the gas station on the corner just over there.” He pointed his finger northeast.

“And Lisbeth?”

Logan’s face turned stony. “They took her.”

Suddenly, it felt as if all time had stopped. “Who? The Kings?” I asked naively. My mind just refused to believe otherwise.

Logan shook his head. “No.”

I saw his mouth form the words, but I didn’t hear them. My ears filled with a dull buzzing noise, and the entire world fell away.

True North.

“What happened?” I cried. I grabbed for Logan’s hands. “You have to tell me!”

Logan jumped back, alarmed. “Carmen, you need to calm down.”

“How could you let them take her? I thought you were helping her.”

“We were ambushed. There was nothing we could do!” Logan hissed.

A man in a suit approached Logan from behind. “Agent Holder,” he said in a cold, oily voice. “Is everything all right over here?”

“Everything’s fine. I’m going to finish up with these two. Has the police department been debriefed yet?”

“No, sir.”

“This shouldn’t take much longer, Vorhees. I’ll be right there.”

The man called Voorhees inclined his head before stalking away. I gaped after him.

“I have to go. There’s a lot of housekeeping to do. Please, just go meet up with Noah and the guys at the gas station.” Logan sounded tired, like a father berating his two rambunctious daughters for interrupting his work.

Who are you?
I wanted to say.

I felt Aspen’s touch on my elbow. “Let’s go,” she murmured.

Logan gave me a hard look, piercing me through with his icy gaze. He turned away without saying goodbye. His gait was straight and steady, erased of his signature biker swagger and practically unrecognizable. Several people in blue windbreakers and latex gloves converged on him, obviously deferring to his authority.

We were on opposite sides of the police barricades, but we might as well have been in opposite dimensions. The image of him standing among the suits and badges held steady in my mind even as I began walking away. I’d broken things off with him hours ago, but I finally felt like I’d lost him forever.

––––––––

T
he gas station on the corner had an attached Mexican restaurant. The dozen or so Skull Kings brothers were inside, spilling out of every booth. The whole place smelled like leather, smoke, and sweat.

Aspen rushed ahead of me when she spotted Liam. He stood up from his seat beside Noah and met her in the aisle, hugging her so hard she rose two inches off of the floor.

Noah’s gaze was steely. “I thought I told you girls to stay put.”

I slid into the booth across from him. “We snuck out. Shayna tried to talk us out of it, so don’t blame her.” I folded my hands in front of me and drew in a deep breath. “I just had a horrible feeling, like something was just really wrong. I couldn’t just sit around.”

Noah made a low, growling noise. “Well, I can’t say I’m going to hold
that
against you.” His neck stiffened as he gazed out the window. “I know exactly how that feels.”

Liam returned to his seat while I scooted over to make room for Aspen.

“So,” I began, “now what?”

“Now, we wait,” Noah said plainly.

“We wait?” I said incredulously.

Noah shook his head. “By the time we showed up, the police were already there. Logan told us it was in the law’s hands now. I mean, what else are we going to do? We have no idea where they’re taking her. I can’t just dispatch our crew to every corner of the state hoping to get lucky.”

I wracked my brain, turning over every conversation I’d ever had with Lisbeth. “Well, not every corner...”

Noah quirked an eyebrow. “What do you mean by that?”

“Before Lisbeth came into town, her last contact with True North was in Las Vegas. I mean, it’s a long shot, but...”

“It sure as hell beats sitting around on our asses, waiting for the FBI to take care of our business,” Liam finished, making a fist.

Noah’s jaw clenched. A vein rose out of his temple. He was thinking really,
really
hard. “It’s barely anything to go on,” he said.

“All I’m saying is we’ll just let the FBI chase their leads.” I drew in close. “And we’ll chase ours.”

* * *

I
t seemed as if Liam never got off his phone the moment we got back into my car. Aspen and I were forced to listen as he received call after call in the back seat. The desert opened up around us as we left Phoenix behind. Liam said, “Thanks, bye,” for the fifth time and hung up. An uncharacteristic two seconds of silence followed, and I sensed my opening.

“What’s the plan?”

“Noah got a hold of our Laughlin chapter. The have an envoy on the road as we speak. If the True Northers are trying to take Lisbeth into Nevada, we’ll be able to close in on them from both sides.”

“Gotcha.”

“I don’t suppose you could take me home so I can pick up my Harley?”

“So you can jet off while Aspen and I play cards? No way. We’re coming with you.”

I could practically hear Liam smiling. “I figured. So, what’s this I hear about you breaking up with Logan?”

I instinctively flashed a glare at Aspen in the passenger seat.

“Logan was the one who told me,” Liam said quickly. “He seemed pretty bummed about it.”

“Well, he did leave a passive-aggressive note on my windshield earlier today, so that doesn’t surprise me.”

“He
did
?” Aspen said. “You never told me that.”

I sighed loudly and summarized the main points of Logan’s letter, finishing off with, “The nerve of him, right?”

Aspen and Liam remained silent.

“What?” I said.

“I mean,” Aspen began cautiously, “he does make a good point. Uh—not that—you know—you don’t have your own good points.”

Liam interjected, “The biggest issue I see is that you’re focusing a lot on the fact that he called you out for abandoning Lisbeth. But what about the rest of what he said? I gotta agree with Logan, I think you really are scared.”

I studied the billboards flicking past us just to have something to look at. “But he
lied
to me.”

“Because it was his job,” Aspen said. “He finally told you the truth, even though he could get into tons of trouble for doing it. It should count for something.”

I bristled, and my grip tightened on the steering wheel. “When did this become an interrogation? I thought we had a rescue mission to carry out.”

“Fine. No more talking about Carmen’s love life,” Liam said. He reached from the back seat and took Aspen’s hand. Their fingers laced together so quickly it looked natural. “But you should know that the two of us know what we’re talking about.”

I only pretended to puke when they kissed, but my stomach began to feel like a rotting, sick mass. I questioned whether or not I’d made the right decision by ending things.

But then, I remembered that cold look he gave me when I showed up at the crime scene. It would’ve made sense if there had been hate or resentment in his eyes, but there wasn’t any emotion at all. Just indifference.

Somehow, the indifference was worse.

––––––––

L
iam’s phone rang suddenly, the sound of it piercing through my highway hypnosis. I jerked awake, charged with energy, as Liam answered the phone.

“Huh?
Really?
Okay, we’ll meet you there.” He repeated directions to himself.

Adrenaline flooded my system by the time Liam hung up. The world around me seemed clearer, sharper. There was something in the air, I could sense it. We were getting close.

“So?” I said.

“The Laughlin chapter got the guys. They set up a fake DUI checkpoint on the west bound side and questioned every driver that tried to pass through.”

My heart jumped. “And Lisbeth?”

“Lisbeth is safe.”

For now,
I couldn’t help but think. My foot sank down on the gas pedal.

Aspen’s hand darted out for my arm. “Slow down!”

“It’s okay,” Liam said. He grabbed Aspen’s shoulders from behind. “Carmen, I see you’re only going fifteen above the speed limit, but your speedometer goes up to one-twenty.”

I grinned at him. “Then, let’s see if we can really go that fast.”

The desert whipped past our windows at frightening speed. Ten minutes later, signs for the next rest stop started popping up at the roadside. That was where Lisbeth, True North, and the Laughlin Skull Kings were waiting.

Liam tapped my shoulder when we passed the sign reading
Rest Stop: 1 mile ahead.
I eased off the gas and turned off of the interstate. A long, winding road led us to a near-abandoned rest stop with only a few cars—and
many
motorcycles—in the lot.

We were the first Canyonites to arrive.

I parked, and Liam unbuckled himself and got out immediately. Aspen and I were seconds behind him. We walked toward the congregation huddled in the picnic area. My eyes scanned the crowd for Lisbeth.

“Liam!” her voice screeched. Her petite body broke away from the crowd and ran toward us. Evidently, she found us first.

A man stepped forward to grab her wrist, jerking her to a stop. “Not so fast!”

That voice sounded familiar. His facial features grew clearer as I closed the distance between us. Then, I realized where I’d seen him before.

“Father Alan?”

The rest of the crowd turned to look. For some reason, I felt uneasy watching them, and it was hard to figure out why. The True Northers weren’t at all what I expected. Rather than baggy jeans and bandanas, they were dressed in silk ties and trousers. Father Alan himself had foregone his vestments in favor of a black Italian suit with a bright red pocket square. Diamond studs glinted in his earlobes.

Or just plain ol’ Alan,
I mentally amended.

“Carmen,” Alan said. “Nice of you to join us. These are my friends.”

When he waved his hand behind him, I finally realized why the atmosphere seemed so off. The Skull Kings and the True Northers were intermingled, contradicting the biker vs. gangbanger stand-off I’d expected.

“What’s going on?” Liam growled.

“While we were waiting on you, I had a very interesting conversation with your Laughlin president,” Alan said.

A tall Skull King stepped forward. He had a long, white-blonde ponytail and tattoos of spitting cobras spiraling on each arm. “’Lo, Olsen,” he said, giving him a brief nod in greeting.

“Hey, Jameson” Liam said faintly. “What’s up?” His eyes traced carefully from the two men to Lisbeth, who shivered a few paces behind Alan, too petrified to move.

Alan began straightening out the cuffs of his jacket. “I had some associates working for me in Canyon City. Perhaps you’ve heard of them? The Scorpions?”

Liam gripped his hands into fists. “Yeah. I’ve heard of ‘em.”

“Then, I don’t have to remind you of the fact that
your
chapter was responsible for putting them out of commission. Now, this changes the entire landscape of my business model.” Alan put his hands into his pockets and took two slow steps forward. “Luckily for the both of us, Jameson has volunteered his chapter to replace the Scorpions.”

“What?” Liam said.

Aspen’s hand shot out for mine in the dark. I squeezed her fingers.

“It was part of the deal to get your sister back,” Jameson said gruffly. His cobra tattoos rippled when he crossed his arms. “So, you’re welcome.”

“But I’m sure there’s a little something in it for you, right?” Liam said with a sneer.

“Of course there is!” Alan interjected. “Drugs and gambling practically go hand in hand. Now that the Scorpions are caput, I have no reason to keep my business in Arizona—”

“Business? Why don’t you call it what it really is. You’re nothing but a racketeering, drug-dealing, human trafficking—”

Aspen put a hand on Liam’s shoulder, reminding him of why we were really there.

“What it all boils down to is this,” Jameson said. “Alan needed some muscle, and we’re more than willing to provide it in exchange for a kickback.” He grabbed Lisbeth roughly around the waist and shoved her toward us. “
Your
sister. And a cut of the profits.”

Aspen and I rushed forward to collect Lisbeth. Meanwhile, Liam began shaking with rage. “Noah won’t be happy to hear this.”