Knight (37 page)

The gun settled at my hip. Priest wasn’t the right target, but he was a decent punching bag until Heathen’s blood stained my knuckles.

The fire escape led to a battered emergency door. I wasn’t about to use my boot too. Wouldn’t be stealthy, and I didn’t know where Thorne waited inside the door. The alarm wires were severed, at least. That was good. I pushed against the metal frame, and the door gave.

Darkness waited inside, shadowing the upper floor in silence and dread. I pulled my gun as the door creaked behind me. The metal ground against metal, but it blended with the other stale and ragged noise shattering within the expense of the warehouse.

The space wasn’t empty. Machinery, rusted and unused, lined the downstairs. Pistons and cranks, conveyor belts and cogs. Just enough greasy steel to assume the location wasn’t one of Temple’s designated drug covers. They cut the cocaine here. Packaged it. Sent it to their men on the West Coast.

Then again, Temple was expanding. Enough drugs and money passed through Heathen’s slimy fingers. They made a play for the East Coast as well—stories of decapitated MCs passed in warning through the entire US.

Temple didn’t fuck around.

And Priest had no fucking idea what devil he flipped off when he ransacked the warehouse. Two bodies lay dead, bleeding, on the concrete below. Temple men. If it wasn’t the drugs, it was the blood that would be the final insult. War wasn’t trenches and dirt, it was bikes and money. It didn’t have the same casualties, but enough people suffered and died for their own causes.

Priest was no exception. His greed would destroy the Valley in absolute carnage. Men would die. Women would meet a worse fate. The Feds would flock to the stained streets and cut their teeth on the patched men that remained.

I counted only six of Priest’s men scouring the warehouse for a hidden compartment on one particular machine. At least they were smart enough to get the location of the drugs out of the guard before killing him, but not smart enough to make him open it himself.

The second-story was little more than rafters bordering the warehouse. The stairs led mainly to an office overlooking the equipment. The door was locked, the lights out.

But a metal tipped boot struck the floor. Only two steps. Enough to be looking for someone. Listening. I didn’t trust that it was Thorne. I leaned, my back against the wall, gun at my chest.

And waited.

Priest and his men shouted from below. The boot scuffed, near me, but deliberately stalking someone else.

I followed, breath bitten and held. My gun slowly extended. I took care not to rattle the zipper on my jacket or creak against the leather.

One step. Two steps.

My target crossed into the corner of the rafters. He held a weapon. A metal edge glinted in the dim light cast from below.

It wasn’t Thorne.

But he aimed for the crouching man hidden behind pitched crates and unused boxes.

I ran, but I wasn’t quick enough. The knife plunged downward, slicing through leather, skin, and bone. Thorne’s shocked shout muffled against the hand slapped over his mouth. The knife crossed in front of them. Slashed at his neck.

I cracked the butt of my gun against the attackers’ head.

Lash
.

The fucker dropped the knife, but he didn’t fall. I knee’d him the groin and whipped him across the face with my pistol. Lash crumbled against the rafter’s low railing.

Son of a bitch got what he deserved.

With a grunt I shoved his body against the metal, heaving him to the edge. He screamed just before flipping over the bars and crashing to the floor below.

Priest shouted, and his men scattered, ducking below machinery and tables and aiming their guns. A stray shot pierced the cement behind me. I ignored it.

Thorne had fallen.

Blood splattered everywhere.

And now his gun pointed at me.

“Fucking…
traitor
.” His throat bubbled with blood, his words rasped in pain.

Shit
.

He thought I set him up.

Thorne thought I took some sort of bullshit revenge. That I worked with Priest and lured him into a warehouse after calling away his support. He’d die thinking I meant for him to bleed out at my feet.

It wasn’t an insult, it was my death warrant. Even a dying Thorne hacking from one functioning lung was more dangerous than any of my former men or Temple’s enforcers.

The gun aimed. Thorne’s bloody hand nearly slipped from the trigger.

It gave me enough time to punch a dying man in the face and wrestle the weapon from his hands.

The men below fired twice, aiming at the crates. A bullet crushed through the wood, scattering shards of splinters over Thorne.

He didn’t fucking care.

Didn’t think he noticed.

“Kill the cocksucker!” Priest shouted. “Find the coke and get the fuck out of here!”

Thorne struggled, but I dove over him, flipping him onto his stomach. I ripped off my jacket and tore through my shirt, stuffing the material over his gashed, pulsing, blood-erupting wound.

“Holy
shit
, Thorne.” I pulled my gun, firing a warning shot below. I wasn’t near the bastards I needed to shoot, and I couldn’t keep pressure on the slice to his back. “Can you move?”

He garbled something about me being an asshole. Fuck it. I’d take any insult—just meant his black, un-fucking-forgiving heart still beat.

Priest’s men pounded up the metal stairs. I swore. Nothing I did for Thorne meant shit if they plugged his wound with bullets. I jammed my knee against his back with my full weight, some old triage strategy Gold used to talk about from his military training. It offered more pressure and freed my hands to shoot. That was all I needed.

My gun slammed over top of the crate. I fired.

One of Priest’s chosen prospects ate the slug, slicing through his skull and down his throat. Blood splattered. The corpse tumbled backwards down the stairs, striking the men trapped behind as it fell.

They shouted, and delayed their next shot, but it didn’t help.

Thorne was dying. My gun was emptying. Priest’s men encroached.

I couldn’t leave the bastard. Even if he might have killed me. Even if the fucking war between us thrived on his hatred, I’d never face Lyn again if I left without him.

Christ. The rest of Anathema would have my fucking
balls
if he died.

Another man rushed, crashed against the top of the steps and fired. I ducked, narrowly missing the bullet as it crashed through the makeshift, failing defense. The boxes and crates only shielded us from the light. Did nothing as bullets raged and six men assaulted the position.

I didn’t have time to reload. I slammed my gun in the holster and stole the one Thorne strapped to his side. I fired, but I didn’t have a clean shot. I ducked. Thorne’s wound bled. The men attacked.

I had no fucking options. Even one of my worst ideas might have been divinely inspired at that moment.

But the next hail of gunfire didn’t aim at me. The emergency door crashed open. A semi-automatic blasted its way inside, flaring hard and fast and deafening me in echo. The figure spent his round and then dove, half-crawling, half-sprinting to my position. He shouted.

“
Knight
!”

Mother.

Fucking.

Asshole.

I recognized that voice—the very bowels of hell splintered open and spat out the bastard.

I should have turned the gun on him. At least then I would have deserved the hatred and gunfire.

At least then I’d have traded the
martyr
label for
murderer
and found some goddamned relief.

Brew-fucking-Darnell wasn’t dead.

He covered my ass and opened fire, scattering Priest’s men and nailing two in the chest.

“Back from the goddamned grave?” I reloaded and considered saving a bullet for him.

Brew didn’t smile, didn’t apologize. The scar through his eyebrow always looked more harrowing when he held a gun, and the dark goatee didn’t help. Neither did his tan.

He wasn’t dead. Whatever self-inflicted exile he concocted had turned into a fucking vacation.

“Keep called.” Brew reloaded. “Said you needed help. Temple’s on my ass. I ducked a squad of men on the way here.” He stared at Thorne. “Jesus
fuck
.”

Thorne coughed. Only brought up more blood. I knelt on his injury harder.

“ATF’s also heading our way,” I said. “Some sort of trap Lyn set.”

“Why am I not surprised?” Brew grunted, helping me to shift Thorne. “Can he move?”

Thorne could hardly fucking breathe. I hauled him up, ignoring his flood of garbled profanity.

“How long do we got until Temple shows?” I grunted, hoisting under Thorne’s shoulder to help steady him.

No time at all.

The doors below blew open in a torrent of gunfire. The roar of firearms and shouts, screeching metal and crunching glass slaughtered those below in a bellow of violence.

The warehouse erupted into absolute chaos, destroying the machinery and overhead lights with reckless vengeance.

“Go!” I shouted. Brew hauled Thorne’s other arm over his neck. “Fire escape.”

Thorne was in no condition to move, but he wasn’t dead yet, just jostled over the rafters while the gunfire ricocheted shrapnel at our feet.

The bastard was pure muscle of dead weight. I groaned, hauling him into the wall as Brew dropped to take out the Temple asshole climbing the stairs. Brew didn’t have time to aim and missed. He ducked to avoid the return shot. I couldn’t reach my weapon in time.

Another gun fired instead, and the Temple brother fell.

Thorne pushed his gun into my chest. “Always was a faster shot than you, Lancelot.”

Great. He couldn’t walk, but he could murder and insult me with his last, scraping breath. Brew hauled his ass up, and we dragged him to the fire escape. The stairs kicked out. We made it to the last before Brew pointed to the ground.

“You jump down, I’ll pass him to you.”

Jesus. Six feet of a drop was too much for a man bleeding to death. I landed on the dirt. Brew gripped Thorne’s arms and dropped. Probably ripped him in half judging by the slice in his shoulder and side. He was lucky Lash hadn’t cut his throat. We just delayed his death and prolonged his suffering while Brew crashed beside me.

“There’s a van out front,” I said. “Run for it.”

Brew didn’t speak. That bastard rarely did, even when he owed me one
hell
of an explanation.

If we survived this.

Thorne was the lucky bastard now—one foot in the grave, one a hand raised, flipping off the world. He didn’t have to worry about dying now. Certainty made death a lot easier to welcome.

We burst from the cover offered by the building, and Brew opened fire on the lone guard posed by the door. The shouting and carnage inside the warehouse crashed into the lot. Bullets sprayed, blood splattered, and the fight rolled into the gravel.

We stole Priest’s van and tossed Thorne’s unmoving body inside. His head smacked off the metal floor, but I doubted he felt it.

I shoved my guns in Brew’s hand and leapt into the front seat.

Priest’s men left the keys in the ignition, but a hell of a lot of good it did when all of Temple MC opened fire on the engine.

Brew shouted for me to move. I started the van and jammed it in gear, twisting the wheel as far as the tires would cut to get the fuck away from the curtain of bullets.

We were too slow. Brew hadn’t shut the doors before a Temple asshole launched at the opening.

Brew’s boot collided with the man’s head, breaking every bone in his face and crunching him into the dirt. The door slammed shut. I forced the van into a one-eighty and humped the accelerator until the dirt billowed behind our tires.

A bullet smashed through the rear window. Brew swore, but he hadn’t been hit. Just showered with glass.

“What the fuck did you do to Temple?” He shouted, ripping Thorne’s shirt off and examining the wounds. The president hadn’t moved for a while. I focused only on the road. “Jesus fuck, Knight!”

“They think I murdered Blade!”

“Why the fuck do they think that?”

“Because your asshole father pinned it on me.”

Brew snorted. “You do know that I killed him?”

Jesus Christ. “
Now
I do, but no one else does. They think you’re dead.”

“Well, I’m not dead,” Brew said.

“No
fucking
shit!”

The van drove like the tires were slashed and concrete poured into the tank. The wheel jerked and the engine immediately smoked. Verged on overheating.

Son of a bitch.

“
Rose
…”

Thorne spoke, but even her name crackled, bubbled over whatever air leaked from his lungs. Brew leaned over him, pointing a finger at the dying man.

“Don’t you fucking dare.”

“
Watch her
…”

“Mother
fucker
!”

I shouted as Brew picked Thorne up just to slam his head against the metal floor of the van.

“You break my girl’s heart and I swear to Satan himself, ain’t no one in hell gonna save your ass from me.”

We had a way to go before reaching hell.

Like thirty to life in prison.

The only road leading to the warehouse crowded with flashing lights and wailing sirens. ATF and the local police sped to the shootout.

They’d set up a barricade.

The van hit fifty miles an hour.

A cage gave me a confidence boost, and I’d rather roll it than spend the rest of my days in a cell. I shouted to Brew.

“Hold him!”

The accelerator might have slammed through the frame and into the road below. I jerked the wheel before colliding headfirst into a cruiser. Horns blared. The sirens screamed.

I spun out before the barricade, launching the van hard into the desert brush and parched dirt thirsty for more than blood. The van hit hard. Brew shouted as Thorne tumbled on the floor.

Only one cruiser dared to follow, but he twisted in the brush outside the road and got trapped in the gully alongside the pavement. The others counted their losses and drove to the fight.