Rage (A Thunder Gypsies MC Outlaw Biker Romance) (2 page)

“Been looking for you,” Bolo shouted above the open throttle of Callan’s bike. “We need to hit the clubhouse for a talk.”

I felt the blood drain from my face. If Callan went to the clubhouse with Bolo, he was dead.

Revving the engine on his bike, Callan seemed to study the other Gypsy. “Thirsty, need a drink first.”

Callan moved to shut off the engine on his bike, but Bolo stepped forward and put his hand over that of the younger man.

“No drink.” He ordered, his voice taking on the stern tone befitting his rank as the club’s enforcer. “Besides, your girl ain’t in tonight.”

Blood rushed back to my face. Callan had a girl? Great -- maybe she should be the one spying from the bathroom and trying to figure out how to save his stupid ass from his so-called motorcycle brothers.

“Don’t have a girl,” Callan said and flung Bolo’s hand off his own to give the bike’s motor another rev.

Bolo looked over his shoulder, the angle of his head making me feel like he was staring at the bathroom’s small window with me behind it instead of just the back of Freya’s bar. He gave a little shrug but didn’t drop the argument.

“Not what Little Red says.”

“Red needs to worry about his own dick.” Callan moved once more to shut off the bike, only to have Bolo stop him again.

Ninety-nine-point-ninety-nine percent of the time, Callan looked like he wouldn’t hurt a fly despite the outlaw vest and steel-toed boots that could crack a human skull with one kick. But even in the low light behind the bar, I could see anger slow crawling across his features as Bolo blocked him a second time.

“Four brothers inside,” Callan said, his voice a tight knot. “If you’re calling Church, seems we’re riding a little light.”

Bolo dropped his hands to his sides for a second before he turned his open palms toward Callan and gave a full-bodied shrug. Seeing the false gesture of peacefulness, I knew I couldn’t wait any longer. Either Bolo was going to sweet talk Callan back to the clubhouse or somewhere along the side of the road where he could kill him without witnesses or a deadly fight was going to erupt before they left Freya’s parking lot.

I dropped to the floor, pulled out my cell phone and dialed 911 as I crouched down so I wouldn’t be talking near the open window. Cupping my hand around my mouth and the speaker, I waited for dispatch to answer.

“911, what is your emergency?”

“Murder!” The word blurted from me as soon as she finished the question. “Freya’s, out back. The Gypsies--”

“Calm down, miss.”

I heard the crackle of the dispatcher reaching one of the patrol units on their radio. She told them a disturbance was in progress at the bar.

“Murder,” I repeated. “M-U-R-D-E-R, not a fucking disturbance! The Gypsies are going to kill Callan Tilley, you dumb--”

I sucked in a calming breath. I needed the woman on the other end to be my friend, to send the cops here as fast as their super-charged cruisers would carry them.

“Please,” I whispered, glad for the throbbing vibrations of Callan’s bike to cover my voice. “If they don’t kill him here, they’ll do it at the clubhouse or on the ride back. But it’s happening tonight.”

“Who is this?” the operator asked.

I could tell by her tone that she had filled in the other half of “dumb” and didn’t give a rat’s ass that someone was about to die. But, before I could think about answering her question, I heard the patrol car’s response and the excitement in the responding officer’s voice. He gave his coordinates, the location less than half a mile away.

That was all I needed to know. I snapped the phone shut, ending the call as I opened the bathroom door. If I wanted to live, I had to be back in the thick of the bar, slinging drinks when the sirens started or when Bolo proved he was as stupid as molasses is slow and shot Callan behind Freya’s.

Halfway down the hall, Little Red stepped into view. His lips did a smirking dance as he walked up to me and put his hands on my shoulders. His head dropped to a conspiratorial angle and he smiled at me, the air issuing past his open lips rank with the smell of beer, whiskey and cigarettes.

“You’re late with the drinks, darling.” He brought his mouth closer to my ear, making my skin feel like I had a colony of ants crawling along my neck. “Now, what are we going to do about that, hmm?”

“I’ll bring them right away.” I promised, swallowing hard while I tried my damnedest not to look repulsed or give away the fact that I had just called the cops on him and his gang. Either sin committed against the vice-president of the Thunder Gypsies would earn me at least a beating.

“That doesn’t fix them being late, does it?” His hands moved halfway down my arms and then he jerked me closer.

His groin pushed against mine and I was half a heartbeat away from freaking out when I heard the sirens in the distance. Little Red heard them, too. He released me immediately, as if the police were on their way for his sickening, but minor, molestation of my flesh.

Panic flashed across his face as his hands moved over his belt line and pockets. He bent quickly, his search for contraband continuing as he fingered the inside edge of his boots. Straightening, his gaze raked my body and then he jerked a thumb down the hallway toward the main room and the serving station beyond.

“Get me those whiskeys.” He turned, his head twisting so he could look back at me. “Teaching you to move faster will have to wait.”

I nodded, something else entirely racing through my mind.

Fine by me, asshole.

Squashing the urge to collapse against the wall in relief, I followed after Little Red, the flashing lights of the patrol car lighting up the front of the bar as the cruiser pulled into the parking lot.

********************

A surreal, low-key circus erupted with the arrival of the police. Act one was Callan roaring
through the front parking lot on his modified Harley as soon as the red and blue lights breached the dark behind the building. Thinking they had a rabbit to chase, the cops took off after him.

Seeing Callan leave with the cops in pursuit, Little Red, Weaver, and the other two Gypsies from the back room barreled past me on their way to the front door. Bolo pushed into the bar at the same moment, his face a furious red and both hands clenched.

“Fucker kicked my bike over and took off!” Bolo uncurled one big hand long enough to grab the edge of Little Red’s vest and shake him. “He fucking knew what was going down!”

With the second act in full swing, the rest of the bar’s patrons and all of its staff looked for someplace to hide because a fight between the Gypsies’ vice-president and its sergeant-at-arms seemed certain.

Little Red clapped his hands around Bolo’s head. “Don’t be paranoid, brother. Maybe Last Drop was carrying something he couldn’t have the cops find on him and that’s why he ran. He doesn’t know shit because no one in the club or out would cross us like that.”

“No.” Bolo shook Little Red’s hands away. His whole body vibrated with energy as he growled at his vice-president. “That pussy won’t carry a piece and you know he doesn’t have so much as a joint on him. I’m telling you he fucking knows!”

My hands balled into fists. I forced them to straighten then shoved them into the pockets of my apron as I edged my way toward the serving station. The way they were talking about Callan pissed me off. I found “Last Drop,” the club nickname for him because he was his father’s youngest, insulting. Callan Tilley was more man than all five of the Gypsies standing in front of me were combined. And to suggest he was a coward because he wouldn’t carry drugs or a gun was all kinds of messed up coming from someone who was trying to lure a “brother” back to the clubhouse so he could kill him.

Bolo and Little Red were the cowards and I wanted to tell them as much -- walk my stupid ass right up to them, shake my fist under their noses and call each out as the piece of shit he was.

I didn’t. Even if everyone thinks I’m stupid, no one has claimed I’m suicidal. I kept my head down until the Gypsies left the bar. With a smile plastered on my face, I kept working my shift, stopping only when a second patrol car showed up and started asking questions.

Hoping they wouldn’t recognize my voice, I spoke in soft tones. A guilty sweat covered my top lip and brow even though I had taken the battery out of my phone and stashed it behind the bar. The police stayed about half an hour, questioning every female in the place until dispatch radioed and said there was a three-car accident on the interstate.

Two hours later, I climbed into the cab of my dad’s rusted pick-up, my chest heavy with the knowledge that the last Tilley brother was gone from Thunder Valley. At least I hoped Bolo was right and Callan knew he couldn’t go back to the clubhouse or any other place he might run into a Gypsy. But the only way to make sure was to find Callan and tell him Little Red had an execution order out on him.

“Lots of squawking on the scanner tonight,” my dad announced as I drew the seat belt across my chest.

“Yeah.” The truck was about fifteen years too old for anything on it to be automatic, so I reached around to push down the lock on my door. Then I rolled down the window a little for relief from the smell of beer and cigarettes.

He hadn’t put the truck in gear yet. I knew when I turned back, his eyes would be on me. Meeting his gaze, I shrugged. “Some pile-up on the interstate.”

“I was talking about the bar.” His gaze narrowed and then his mouth imitated the motion until it was a thin, angry line I knew too well. “Sounds like the cops were questioning just the whores.”

Wow!

My eyebrows shot halfway up my face. I knew better than to leave them there and I forced them down, another fake smile shaping my mouth. “Questioning the whores and me, dad.”

“Only whores work in bars.”

Okay
.
I guess that made him my pimp since he claimed most of my money.

I took a deep breath, my sensitive nose trying to gauge just how many beers had passed his lips before he remembered he had to pick me up from work. Anything after seven and he’d turn violent in a heartbeat. Since all I smelled was beer without the bitter mix of bile, I figured he was at four cans. Any less and his grip on the wheel would have been tighter.

Upping the wattage on my smile, I nodded at the insult but didn’t let it slide. “Only whores and me.”

“
Don’t get mouthy.” He glared at me before putting the truck in gear and slowly pulling forward. “You didn’t call the cops on them bikers, did you?”

“Don’t have the minutes on my phone to waste,” I answered.

He let the topic drop. Toeing a few empty cans out of the way, I made room for my feet on the truck’s floor and rolled the window down a little further. The act reminded me of being stuck in the bathroom at Freya’s, my nose to the window first so I didn’t have to smell the stench and then because I had to know what was going on between Bolo and Callan. The sense of deja vu between my actions at the bar and in the truck was so strong, I could have sworn I heard Callan’s bike in the distance.

My heart skipping a beat, I checked the side mirror then discreetly looked through the cab’s back window. I didn’t see headlights and the sound of a motorcycle’s open throttle faded like the ghost it was.

“Anything else on the scanner?” I asked, trying to get my mind off the phantom sounds of Callan’s bike and maybe learn from my dad whether the police had caught up with him.

He grunted, one hand reaching into his shirt pocket to fish out his pack of cigarettes. I reached forward and pressed the cigarette lighter for him like a good daughter would.

“Just them cars on the freeway and the shit at the bar.” He plucked a cigarette from the pack and put it between his lips. Making a show of counting how many cigarettes were left, he waited until the lighter popped before he returned the pack to his pocket.

“Do we need to stop on the way home?” I asked, already knowing the answer. He wanted me to buy him another pack and probably more beer. As drunk as he wasn’t, he had to be out of alcohol at home.

Exhaling, he picked at a loose fleck of tobacco that had fallen on his lip. “Could use some ciggies and a twelve.”

“Sure, I’ll run in and get them.” I tried to keep the disappointment from my voice at the familiar exchange. I hated that I had to work two jobs to help keep him in alcohol and tobacco, hated it more knowing that if I didn’t volunteer the money, he’d find another way to get it out of me. Like Callan, I needed to get the hell out of Thunder Valley, but I didn’t have a ride.

Callan...

Thinking about my dad and my own sorry situation, I had lost sight of the bigger picture for a second. Looking out the window and feigning disinterest, I tried to pull a little more information from my old man before I resorted to any direct questions.

“Hey, didn’t the cops chase one of the bikers, tonight?”

“Didn’t catch him,” he answered before giving the knob on the stereo a hard twist. Country music blared over the truck’s tinny speakers, telling me any further conversation between us was unwelcome.

Fine with me. I stayed silent until we stopped at the Kwik-Shop, where I dashed inside for the cigarettes, a twelve-pack of beer and a gallon of milk. Knowing all the city and county cops stopped at the little convenience store for the free coffee and fountain drinks the owner offered police, I tried to chat up the guy behind the counter.