Where Souls Spoil (78 page)

I had a feeling he knew I’d figured out where the safe house is. Shit, but now’s not the time to think over what that means.

“Yes, sir,” I say automatically. Before I think better of it, the words fly out of my mouth. “Nic went in to the shop after all. Claims she didn’t hear the order to stay home. Old Man Hill’s got a piece, and he’s keeping an eye on her.”

“Fucking hell. She never fucking listens. Good that she’s with him, though,” is all Duke says before he hangs up the phone. I guess he knows something about the guy that I don’t.

Back inside the shop, I cut off another customer—this one a woman—and level Nic with a glare. “Need your keys.”

“Why?”

“Duke’s orders,” I say. She gives them up easily, but detaches the small ring with her house keys before tossing them my way. On my way out the door I shout, “Stay with Old Man Hill, or it’ll be your hide.”

CHAPTER 4

November

17 months to Mancuso’s downfall

The drive to
the safe house is no more than fifteen minutes on my bike—not that I’ve timed it—but it takes over twenty in Nic’s car. There aren’t many speed traps in town, but once you get to the outskirts, along the highway, the highway patrol sits around with donuts around their dicks just waiting for some asshole to fly by. They can’t see my cut from inside the sedan, and getting pulled over would take time I don’t have. So I suffer.

Soon enough, the SUVs come into view. They’re parked on the side of the narrow highway, seemingly unattended at first sight. I pull off to the side about fifty yards away and kill the engine. On foot, I approach the SUVs with caution, retrieving my gun from the back of my jeans, unlocking the safety, and rounding the back of Ruby’s Suburban.

The crunching of a pinecone surprises me, redirecting my attention to the other side of the Suburban. Fish stands just off the side of the road, with an AR-15 in his hands, the business end pointed right between my eyes. It takes him a moment to relax before he lowers the gun and narrows his eyes in frustration. His chest heaves from the shock of being snuck up on. My own gun is still at my side, having not reacted quickly enough to draw it. Fuck. This is the shit that Duke is talking about when he says that I need to pay better attention or I’m going to get my ass killed.

“Scared me, man,” he complains.

I shake off the fear of being done-in by friendly fire, and blow out a heavy breath. “You’re fucking telling me.” Nodding my head to the woods and raising my brows, I say, “Duke wants me with him. Where is he?”

“About two miles in, straight ahead. But you can’t go in like that,” Fish says.

“Right.” Sneaking up on a bunch of guys with military-grade firepower and a life or death situation is a sure way to turn myself a pair of shish keballs. “Better tell him I’m coming.”

“That, too, but I need to debrief you first,” he says. Resting the large weapon on its strap over his shoulder, Fish casts a suspicious glance down each side of the highway before he rounds the SUV and unlocks the back passenger door. He pulls out another semi with a scope attached and hands it to me. Then he grabs two smart phones and eyes them before deciding they’re what he’s looking for.

I grab the rifle by the barrel, and my arm sags with its weight. I haven’t shot an AR-15 since Dad was around and he used to take me shooting on Jim and Ruby’s property for practice. Since then, the only thing I’ve practiced on are some of Dad’s old handguns Nic has hidden around the house. My sister doesn’t dislike guns—she just thinks I’m going to blow my foot off because she’s convinced I’m nothing more than a stupid fucking kid.

Fish raises an eyebrow. “You got any idea what you’re walking into?”

No, not really. I mean, on some level I guess I got an idea. But I ain’t ever done this shit before, so how am I supposed to know what I’m walking into? All I know is that they decided to let me start earning my top rocker during a really fucking dangerous time—not that I’m complaining. The pride that comes with the patch is worth the risk.

“Didn’t think so.” He shakes his head and points me to the tree line. “W formation. Two in front, three in back, a mile up. Duke’s front right by himself. Ian took off to find Sweets.” As he talks, he turns the phones on and brings up two different apps. Wyatt’s voice sounds from one of the phones before Fish turns the volume down. On the other phone, he messes with the screen. Jim’s voice booms on the line before he turns that phone down, too.

“She okay?” I ask, still half-focused on the phones as he hands them over. I awkwardly place the strap of the semi over my shoulder and hold the phones, not sure what to do with them.

“For this asshole’s sake, she fucking better be,” he says. “Knuck will skin him alive. Now listen up. This one is a one-way radio so you can hear Jim and the Italian. This is the most important tool you have right now. Priority is keeping Pops whole, got it?” he says as he points at one of the phones.

I nod my head and focus in on the phones. I don’t recognize either app, but they seem awesome as fuck. Who knew Forsaken had such cool toys?

“On the other phone, you can press the button on the screen at any time to talk to the guys. It’s like a conference call. We can all communicate as need be. It’s not a toy, and this isn’t time to shoot the shit, got it?” He pulls out a wireless earbud. “The earbud is synced to Pops, so if you have trouble hearing him over the other phone, just turn its volume down.”

“Serious business,” I say and pop the earbud into my ear. “Got it.”

Just as I’m heading in what I think is the right direction, he pulls a phone out of his pocket and presses the button on the screen. “Baby Boy is heading your way, boys. Try not to shoot him.”

“Got it,” Duke barks back, his voice echoing in not only the phone in my hand but on Fish’s as well. In my ear, I’m hearing bits and pieces of Jim’s conversation with this guy. It’s mostly filled with huffs and few words, none of which I can understand.

“Bring my bitch forth,” Ryan says with a chuckle. The sick fuck. I can actually hear the smile in his voice.

“Gave the kid one of our signatures,” Fish says, referring to the AR-15 that Forsaken’s been fond of ever since I can remember. Dad once told me the club’s got over a hundred of these babies floating around town in various places.

“Bet ya haven’t handled anything that powerful since I let you deep throat my dick, huh?” Ryan says.

I want to just keep my mouth shut and walk toward the woods, but I also want to know how this thing works. So I bring the conference phone to my mouth, press the button, and say, “No, sir, Duke’s is bigger.”

“Damn straight. Now shut up unless it’s business,” Duke says. The chatter on the conference stops immediately.

I’ve made it about a half mile or so before I finally think I see something in the distance, but it turns out to be a wayward branch. It’s all trees and a few birds here and there. I can’t find anybody. Little River is a tiny as fuck place that has like no population at all. The safe house sits far enough back from the highway—a few miles, I think—that I didn’t even know it was here until I took it upon myself to follow Ryan one day when he made it down this way to have a little “talk” with Michael. Nobody told me to follow him, but with how pissed off he was, I didn’t think it was a good idea to let them kill Ruby’s son. Thankfully I didn’t have to do shit because he hopped off his bike before turning off the highway and kicked the shit out of a poor fucking redwood that did nothing but grow in the wrong damn spot. After he calmed his shit about being pissed that I followed him, he wrapped his hand around my shoulder really fucking tight and gave me a nod. It’s the closest he’ll ever get to saying thank you. As much as he’s hating on Michael right now, he doesn’t really want to hurt Ruby.

Trying to walk through woods and not make any noise is probably the stupidest fucking goal ever. If it’s not a pinecone I’m stepping on, then it’s a fallen branch that cracks beneath my boots or a pile of leaves that aren’t wet enough to not make crunching sounds. Sure, let’s hide in the woods. Because that shit makes sense.

Since I’m just a prospect, they don’t tell me shit. But I’m starting to pick up on a few things. The guys who are the best shots are always in the front. That includes Duke, Ryan, and Ian. Ryan tries to take the lead a lot because he’s a cocky motherfucker, but it is actually Ian who consistently has the most accuracy.

“I think I’m lost,” I say into the conference. I feel like I’ve been walking forever and can’t find anybody. Pretty soon I’m going to panic that I’m going to be found and get a bullet to my skull.

“Pull up your pants, shithead,” Wyatt says over the line.

I pause in place and slowly look around but don’t see anything. I take another step before pulling my pants up a little and adjusting my belt so they stay up with my hand that’s not holding the gun.

“Where are you guys?” I ask. I’m fucking failing at this shit. Bad.

“Another twenty feet forward, Jer. And don’t fucking trip on me,” Duke says.

Without arguing, I keep moving forward and don’t see Duke lying in the grass and leaves until I’m almost tripping over him. Shit. He told me
not
to trip on him. Fuck this noise. I can’t go on these missions—I’m going to get my ass capped.

As I approach Duke, he seems to notice my presence but does not turn around. Instead, he lifts his left arm in the air and raises his closed fist, telling me to stop what I’m doing, and says, “Show yourselves, boys,”

I slowly turn around to find Ryan, Wyatt, and Bear taking a step away from three separate redwoods, each about twenty to thirty feet apart. I walked right between Wyatt and Bear without noticing them. They’re all wearing their own clothes and their cuts—no fancy uniforms or camouflage. Just as quickly as they’ve stepped forward, they’ve stepped back into the shadows of their trees and have completely disappeared from view again. Shit. How long do these assholes train for this shit? I thought I was joining a club, not signing up for special ops or something.

Turning back to Duke, I move forward, and as quietly as I can, I lie down on the mixture of grass and fallen leaves beside him. I don’t get too close, but I don’t want to be too far away either. There’s a fine line between two men lying next to each other at a professional distance and two men coming close to cuddling. And I ain’t fucking cuddling Duke.

He begins to talk as I awkwardly set up my position with the rifle. I try my best to mimic his stance. His AR-15 has a bandana over the top of the scope. He sees me eyeing it and pulls a spare out of his pocket and hands it to me. I fumble with tying the fucking thing on without messing up anything. Just because Dad let me shoot these things when I was a kid doesn’t mean I know much about working a scope.

Duke shifts a little. “These two have been fucking gabbing forever now. I really kind of wish that we could just shoot the fucking WOP.”

“We find out who he is yet?” I ask.

“Leo Scavo is our best guess. Seems to fit the bill, but aside from that, we ain’t got shit on him.”

With that, Duke directs his attention back to the magnifying scope on top of his rifle and continues to watch the conversation between Jim and this guy Leo. I adjust the scope on my own rifle so that I can see what’s going down a little bit more clearly. Jim scuffles his boots in the dirt and places his hands on his hips. Ever so slyly, he adjusts the phone in his pocket. It almost goes unnoticed, but the sound in my earbud is so much clearer now. I can actually understand the shit they’re saying. I’ve never been good at distance or nothing, but from here it looks like we are probably a half mile or so away. Thanks to the phone, I can hear him like he’s a few feet away.

“Why the fuck are we so far away?” I hiss. Sure, I can hear and see everything from here. Fine, whatever. But I’d like to be closer just in case this fucking asshole tries anything on Jim.

Duke turns and glares at me. “The whole idea is to hide. How the fuck we gonna hide if they can see us?”

“Shit. Sorry,” I mumble. Fuck him and his attitude. I still want to be closer.

“Now shut the fuck up, and don’t shoot unless I tell you or there’s a bullet in my skull, okay?”

I keep my mouth shut because I’m not a fucking pussy, but I’m not cool with the image of my brother taking a bullet. Nic couldn’t handle that shit, and neither could I.

“None of this answers my question, Mr. Stone,” the Italian says.