Knight (21 page)

Thorne removed the gun hidden under the table. He pointed it at Priest. “How about I kill you now? End this fucking bullshit?”

Priest didn’t answer.

He attacked.

Every
goddamned
time.

The first bullet ricocheted off my bar. It pierced through three full bottles of vodka and punctured my mirror.

Lash and Bounty leapt over the table. Thorne’s shot fired high and caught one of my lights. The equipment fell from the ceiling and shattered, scattering shards of the bulb across the stage. The other lights shorted-out, flickering as chaos erupted and my club became the trenches for another war.

Rose screamed as Bounty launched at Thorne. He ducked, and his own punch hit hard. Bounty’s nose crunched, and blood spurted over the table, the men, and my carpets. Keep seized his chair. He crushed it over Vega’s head. The pieces scattered. Grim dove at him. Gold met him with a punch to the gut.

Another shot.

More blood.

Total anarchy.

“Get down!” Thorne shouted at Rose. “Go to Lyn!”

I couldn’t babysit Rose and defend my club at the same time. I kicked off my heels and ducked to the floor, my raging pulse deafening me to the carnage on my floors. The bar protected me from a thrown glass. I covered my head as the bottles crashed.

This was insane. I had to stop it.

I crawled along the floorboards, punching at the false door installed under the register. The shotgun inside was the only illegal item in my club.

Except the biker war.

Except the men bound to die.

Except the drugs in their veins and blood money in their wallets.

I grabbed the weapon, popping up behind the bar. I aimed the gun over the counter and shouted.

“I swear to God, if you assholes don’t get the hell out—”

I wasn’t ready for the punch to my temple. Lash struck me. Hard. I blacked out as the gun was ripped from my hands but woke as I struck the ground.

Lash aimed at Thorne.

That walking, talking asshole was good for nothing when he was part of Anathema. I blinked through the pain and reached for anything under the bar. I didn’t have any bottles of alcohol, but I found a fire extinguisher.

It’d do the trick.

The barrel sliced through the air, but my injury dizzied me. I aimed for Lash’s skull. The thick whack slammed into his back instead. He grunted and fell to his knee. The gun didn’t fire, but he took aim again.

I wouldn’t give him a target.

I pulled the pin on the extinguisher and jammed the nozzle at Lash. The icy cloud plumed over the fight, and the men shouted in enraged panic. It gave us time, but hell if I knew what to do with it.

I seized my bartender’s flimsy fruit knife and sprayed more of the suppressant. The fog hid my path as I raced to the bastard who was lucky I cared too much about him to leave him bound to a chair.

“Lyn, get the fuck out of here!” Luke’s chair fell on its side. I gripped his arms, groping down, down, down, until my fingers grazed the rope. He managed to loosen it but couldn’t free his hands. The knife sliced through the first rope. “I got it! Fucking
go
!”

It was a good idea. I should have run.

Instead, I rubbed the sweat from my eyes and cut through the rest of the rope. He shoved me away. I gave him cover with the last bit of the propellant in the extinguisher.

Luke didn’t follow, just yelled for me to get clear.

My heart froze in the cloud of ice. It shattered as a gunshot echoed over the club. A man groaned, crashing against tables and shuffling to the floor.

I didn’t see who got hit. Rose’s scream pierced the fray, but at least I could find her. I raced to her side and shoved her to the ground as another bullet tore a path through my club. She resisted, fighting to return to the maw of hell.

I couldn’t let her return to Thorne.

She was the only reason I didn’t lose myself to insanity and rush to help Luke.

I smacked her, missing her ass and striking her hip. “It’s not safe! Out the back!”

Rose took the hint. We half-crawled, half-sprinted through the main floor and into my halls. She hopped to her feet first, helping me as Lash’s punch still scattered my head. I struck the wall. Rose steadied me.

“Lyn, you okay?” Her voice screamed and whispered in my head. Suddenly there were two of her, and that sucked. More to protect. “Let me help you.”

I needed either a tumbler or gun for a shot. It wouldn’t have helped. My car keys were in my purse, trapped inside the club. We were stuck.

The last time we got caught in a shootout at Sorceress, Exorcist shot Brew, stole Rose, and my club nearly burned down. Thorne blitzed through an entire line of Coup assholes to grab a bike and chase them down.

Today wouldn’t have such a happy ending. We had nowhere to hide. We escaped outside, but morning broke through the desert like another punch to the head. I dressed in fucking electric purple, and Rose still wore red from her show. The Coup would have a perfect shot a two neon figures sprinting across the desert.

I stared at the parking lot. “Don’t know how to hotwire a car, do you?”

Rose had the decency to look shamed. “Would you think less of me?”

“Christ, sweetheart, I know why Thorne loves you now.”

“I really hope it’s not just for this.”

She bolted towards the vehicle of her choice. I shouted after her, my feet moving slower than my head. I wasn’t used to being uncoordinated or falling to my knees when it wasn’t my choice.

“That’s not my car!”

Rose jerked open the door to Keep’s truck. “Yours is too new. This one is easier.”

“How do you know?”

She bit her lip. “I’ve…stolen his truck before.”

Of course she had.

I said nothing, leaping into the passenger side as she ripped panels out and ducked under the steering column. My vision blurred. This wasn’t good. Never got a concussion from a blow to the head before. I was glad he hadn’t hit harder. Might have been a different outcome.

Rose swore, but the engine rumbled to life. She jammed the truck into gear, mastering the stick as easily as she rode a bike. The tires spun over loose gravel, but she didn’t slow, accelerating around the building as the fight spilled into the parking lot. She braced for the road.

We both screamed as a thud shuddered the truck. The driver’s door ripped open, and Keep shoved her over the console. We nearly wrecked into Sorceress’s fence.

“Ask for the fucking key next time!” He yelled. The truck stalled as Rose crawled over the seat. Keep took over, starting the engine and aiming for the idiot Coup prospect diving in front of us. “You two okay?”

Rose peeked out the window. Keep and I ducked over her as a rage of gunfire aimed for the truck.

Keep swore. “God
damn
it, I just fixed this motherfucker!”

“Where’s Thorne?” Rose clutched the seat.

“We didn’t stop to chat.”

I knew better than to ask about Luke. That dread didn’t blend well with the concussion. My head throbbed, my stomach twisted, and Luke had pushed me out of the club with his hands still bound and Thorne aiming to kill.

We were lucky we got out alive.

If Luke lived, it’d be a damned miracle.

Keep led the truck towards the city without regard to speed limits or where he jerked the wheels between the lines. He aimed for the double yellow. Missed. Swerved. Rose shouted again.

“Are you
high
?” She gripped his arm as the truck shuddered over the rumble strip. “Goddamn it, Tristan. You’re out of control!”

Not the time I’d bring the addiction up. Keep didn’t think so either.

“I got it. I’m fine,” he said.

“You’re
not
fine! You just told everyone about Dad!”

“Shut up, Bud. I can’t concentrate with you screamin’ all the damn time—”

“You told them Brew was my real father!”

His words sharpened. “No, I didn’t!”

Well, everyone figured it out, and no ten year old pick-up truck would outrun both clubs once they realized Blade Darnell died because he molested the girl he raised as a favor to his eldest son. Anathema was down a VP and The Coup lost an ally to buy off Temple. All we gained was revenge for Brew and a chance for Rose to sleep better at night. She deserved to be safe, but it risked everyone else’s lives.

“You just caused a war!” She beat on his arm. “What if they learn Brew’s not dead?”

“They won’t!”

“How could you do this?”

“Fucking hell, Rose, they
threatened
you!”

“
Everyone
threatens me! You should be used to it!”

The truck jerked into the correct lane before it clipped an opposing vehicle. “I won’t let any asshole threaten to rape my sister…niece…whatever the fuck you are. It doesn’t matter. Brew got to kill Dad. This is how I’ll help you!”

It would have sounded magnanimous if the bruises on his arm hadn’t spoken for him. Keep’s bravery existed in one hundred dollar bursts. He slammed a frustrated hand against the wheel. The truck slipped from his control. It wavered over the road.

We shouldn’t have let him drive.

Adrenaline pumped the junk faster through his veins. Whatever he popped didn’t steady his hands or feet. He stared at the road with dilated pupils and jammed the wheel too roughly to pass a car.

Rose gripped my hand. We were in just as much danger with Keep driving as we were in the club.

I checked the mirrors. Groaned. A lone bike chased us, gaining too quick on the truck. Desert surrounded us, trapped us in desperate isolation for another two miles before we hit the city limits. The highway ran straight.

No turns. No places to hide.

Just flat, dusty, pounded dirt—perfect to bleach our chopped up bones in the scorching sun.

“Gun in the glove box.” Keep pointed. The truck edged off the road with his motion. “Grab it, Lyn.”

And this was what it came down to.

More bullets.

More war.

The same violent massacres over and over.

The Coup heard everything they needed to hear, and Luke had no control over the assholes who drew blood when they should have formed an alliance.

The bike roared closer. I kicked open the glove box for the handgun. Keep shouted.

“Rose—get your fucking head
down
!”

He grabbed for her, striking too hard on her neck. She shouted. He lurched.

The truck veered sharply to the right, careening out of control. He twisted the wheel too fast and hard to recover.

I clung to the door, pressing against the dash.

It did nothing to steady me.

The truck jerked, crunched, and launched off the road. It smacked against a ditch running parallel to the pavement. The wheel stuck. I crashed against the window, the door, Rose.

I lost my breath before I could even scream.

We flipped, tossed against the interior and crunching glass. The screeching, clashing of metal and whine of sizzling engines muffled their shouts. Burnt rubber and exhaust fumes suffocated us within the cabin.

The truck careened over the rocky desert, scattering dust and debris and chunks of the frame. A wheel bounced to the road.

Then stillness.

Quiet.

Rose’s coughing.

Keep wasn’t in the truck. He got thrown clear.

Lucky him.

The seats tore and shredded, and the sharpened springs cut my ankles. I landed right-side up, but we rested on the ceiling. The truck had teetered from its side and crashed upside down. Anything else was too blurry to make sense.

Either Rose’s foot or the dome light cracked against my head. Lash’s punch had battered me enough. Goddamn it. I wasn’t made for injuries.  My body was my life. I lived by my legs, earned tips with my tits, and reinvented every bump of my hips with some newer, sexier dance.

Now, bruised, bleeding, and swollen, I wasn’t in any shape to fight, let alone make my living and earn my favor from the men.

I hoped it wasn’t just my body they respected.

The thought wasn’t comforting.

I wiggled my fingers, toes. Everything worked. I wasn’t too hurt.

Someone shouted. It didn’t sound like Keep, but my ears echoed only the squealing crunch of metal. I pushed myself up. Rose groaned. She was alive. One less casualty from this fucking war.

One less reason for Thorne to kill her junkie brother.

The door yanked open. I wasn’t prepared for the spotlight.

No—sunlight.

How hard did I hit my head?

Strong hands pulled me from the wreckage. I fought, but Rose moved too, stolen from the driver’s side by Keep.

Who had me?

I kicked, punched, hissed, and the motions dragged me from the soupy chaos. Arms held me. Carried me away. I twisted.

Luke’s voice was the only rumble I needed to hear.

“You okay? Lyn? Damn it, look at me!”

Mythological blue eyes stared at me, framed by golden hair and a body sculpted in leather like armor. He held me, helped me to my feet. I gripped his cut.

Blinked away tears.