When Jinx’s lips come down on mine, I forget all about my hapless brothers and press myself closer, seeking his warmth.
Chapter 19
Jinx
Three days later we expel the Hyenas from our territory. Almost all the Sons brotherhood shows up on the outskirts of town to witness the Hyenas leave it for good. We pick a spot that’s far enough away from town that we won’t draw much notice. We just line our bikes up along each side of the road. Two rows of Sons, all of us watching them go.
As near as I can figure, it’s all going according to plan. We give them back their men, and in exchange they agreed to ride out of our territory for good. They seem intent upon keeping their end of the bargain.
If I’m being honest, they are making a pitiful show of themselves today. Their bikes are up front, then four vans and three box trucks hauling everything their club owns. Seeing the club’s possessions, packed up and rolling east feels like closure to me. We don’t know or care where they’re going. By sundown, they’ll be someone else’s problem and that suits me just fine.
There was a time when the brothers were a bit rougher and less aware of the long-term consequences of our behavior. If not for cooler heads prevailing, we’d have run them out of town by throwing bottles, talking trash, and making a humiliation ritual out of it. But Rock’s right about the one thing. A club you humiliate is a club that comes back to even the score. A club you let leave with its colors on might just ride east and forget about us altogether.
So, instead of acting like assholes, we keep our traps shut and just bear witness to their sad departure.
Nora is riding on the back of my bike with her arms wrapped loosely around my waist, and her cheek pressed against my back. She’s been quiet since we arrived at the meeting point. After what Brave said during our last meeting, she’s pretty much ignoring them both.
Scar and Merc handle the last piece of business, transferring the prisoners we took back to the Hyenas. The cartel guy is limping because his leg’s still a mess from the interrogation. I don’t feel particularly bad about that. He’s a ruthless fuckin’ criminal. The tight-lipped Hyena, Rust, is pretty stoic about the whole transfer. They’re a strange pair and I’m glad to be rid of both of them.
One of the Hyenas hangs back a beat, looks at our two prospects with something ugly in his face, and Scar just steps between him and them, real casual, and lets the man get a good look at exactly how unbothered he is.
“You need to walk. I ain’t carryin’ ya,” Scar tells him, as he cuts the zip ties around his wrists. The Hyena stumbles forward towards his club brothers. The Hyenas have to come and help the cartel guy across the road and into one of the vans.
I watch it all in stony silence. My fractured rib still hurts when I move in a certain way. Doc said it was a hairline fracture.
The Hyenas start their engines, and the bikes slowly move out first. The vans fall into line behind them, and the box trucks hang back for a few minutes before they follow. We collectively watch until the last Hyena vehicle is out of our line of sight.
Nobody moves for a few minutes.
“Do you think they’ll stay gone?” Onyx asks.
“If they know what’s good for them, they will,” Jasper throws back. “They lost too much to stay. My best guess is they’re ready for a fresh start. They’ll be lookin’ for new territory and a new way to earn now that the cartel’s cut them off.”
“That ain’t gonna be no easy task,” I say. “Not with an inexperienced new club president that’s barely holdin’ it all together while grievin’ the loss of his old man.”
“Spark’s smart,” Slate chimes in with his two cents worth. “At least smart enough to know a second round with us would end his club for good. He would be stupid to risk that right now.”
“Spark isn’t the one you need to worry about,” Nora says.
I think about what Brave whispered in my old lady’s ear, the thing she told me at the overlook. That shit has been circling around in my head ever since. “Nora is right,” I say. “The smart one’s runnin’ the club now. But the slow one is a wildcard. He can’t control his emotions.”
“I truly hope his grief doesn’t drive him to do something stupid,” Onyx adds. “I imagine that Spark will be keen to lay low for a while. Coal made himself an ally with Stripe’s money. Now Coal’s dead, Stripe’s in a hospital pissin’ through a tube, and a quarter million dollars’ worth of cartel product went up in smoke. Santos is out a lot of money and will be lookin’ for compensation.”
Jasper holds my eyes for a second before speaking. “Then we need to stay alert,” he says. “We keep Striker’s eyes in the sky operational. And we don’t get lazy and fuckin’ complacent as themonths roll by.” He nods at the empty road. “But today they’re gone. We won. The thing that worries me is the Hyenas always seem to come back smarter and hit harder. But that’s a problem for another day.”
We turn our bikes around and ride back into town. Cedar Falls is our little corner of the world, one we don’t like to share with rival clubs. But I file away what we said about Brave.
***
We make one more stop before we go home. We visit St. Mary’s Hospital. It’s an impressive brick building, located on the good side of town. Stripe’s room is on the third floor, and the club paid a nurse to leave it unlocked for twenty minutes. Nora wanted to come. I tried to talk her out of it, but she said this is something she needs to do for closure. I understand where she’s coming from on that. It’s also not my place to tell her what to do, so I brought her.
Stripe is nothing but a snake in the grass, so I stand right by her side. If the bastard tries anything, I’ll drop him in a heartbeat.
Only, he looks even worse than I thought he’d be. I don’t know exactly what I was expecting but his skin is gray against the stark white pillow he’s lying on. He’s hooked up to all kinds of machines. There’s a tube running out of his arm to a machine that hums, hisses and cycles beside the bed. Apparently, his kidneys are fucked so I’m guessing it’s a kidney dialysis machine.
His chest is wrapped where the ribs are. My hand comes up to touch my own ribs as I watch him breathing. My injury is nowhere near as bad as his, and it hurts when I breathe, so fuck knows how much pain he’s in. Every breath he drags in soundswet and weird. His leg is in a cage of pins and steel, hung up in a sling. The Stripe that confronted me three nights ago seemed strong and robust. I literally can’t reconcile what I’m seeing with the broken man before me. How could he go from healthy to this in a matter of days? While I’m struggling to get my head around what I’m seeing, his eyes drift open. He’s still got a lean meanness about him, but he also looks exhausted and hollowed out.
“The happy couple,” he rasps when neither of us speaks first. “Did you fuckin’ come to gloat?”
