Twisted Rose: Motorcycle Dark Romance 3 (The Darkness Trilogy) (16 page)

A mean snarl crossed the gunman’s face as he cocked the hammer.

“Wait,” Murdoch said.

All of the men looked at him.

“What is it?” the gunman said.

“I think this is a job for Patrice, don’t you all?”

“What?” Rose said.

She was stunned. Patrice was there?

She hadn’t meant to speak but the word came out of her mouth before she could think. She knew that Murdoch and some of the other DRMC members knew the whole story of what Patrice had been forced to do to her. Some of them referred to the incident as “The Piss Rape.” But she hadn’t expected this. She hadn’t even known that Patrice was with them.

Patrice’s rape of her had been the real beginning of her nightmare with the DRMC. It had been the moment she’d realized just how evil the DRMC was. And it had been the one crime committed against her that had cut the deepest. The way Fat Boy and Serge had forced that incident, the way they’d calculated it so that Patrice would fall for her and then have to rape her, there was something so insidious and cruel about it that it had shocked her. And now, Patrice was back to mark the end of the nightmare too. Everything had come full circle. The man who’d started her nightmare was here to finish it.

She looked up at the men and one of them stepped forward. He removed his helmet and sure enough it was Patrice, standing there looking her straight in the eye.

She looked away. It was too hard for her to look at him. After everything that had happened, the kindness he’d shown her, followed by the cruelty of the rape, it was all too much. She couldn’t bear to look at him. It was the things that had happened between her and Patrice that had marked her most deeply. Of all the terrible, degrading, humiliating things that the DRMC had done to her, the way they’d crushed the fledgling love between her and Patrice had always had the deepest impact. It was fitting that Patrice would be the man to put the final bullet in Josh and bring her entire chance of happiness to an end.

Patrice looked at her and then looked at Josh, then he took a gun from inside his jacket pocket and pointed it at Josh’s chest.

XXXVI

T
HERE ARE MOMENTS IN A
man’s life when everything that has been in his past and everything that is going to be in his future seem to converge. That was the way it was for Patrice right at that moment. He stood there, his boots solid on the ground, his fully patched jacket on his back, his .38 Smith & Wesson revolver in his hand, and he just couldn’t pull the trigger.

It was his job to pull that trigger. He was a DRMC man and the thing he was supposed to do was kill Josh Carter. Josh was going to be dead soon anyway. Anyone could see that it wouldn’t take long for him to bleed out. He was going to die and everyone knew it. But that wasn’t enough for Murdoch. Murdoch had always laughed at the story of how Patrice had gotten his patch. He’d had to rape a piss covered bitch who he’d had the fool sense to fall in love with. Murdoch said that any man who was stupid enough to fall for a whore deserved whatever happened. Deep down, Josh knew that the real reason Murdoch was so hard on him was because he’d let the same thing happen to himself once. Murdoch was in love with Rose as much as anyone and Patrice knew it.

Patrice couldn’t blame him. Being stuck out there at the Cat all that time, living with her for two years, she was so lovely that any man would fall for her. And now, because of that jealousy, Murdoch was making him pull the trigger on Josh, the man who actually had been able to win Rose’s heart.

It should have been easy for him. Patrice didn’t know what was holding him back. There should have been nothing he wanted to do more than kill Josh Carter. He’d watched Josh kill Serge and Deuce, he’d kidnapped Rose who was by all rights the property of the DRMC. He was a fully fledged enemy of the MC. Patrice was a Dark Rebel and his job was to protect the club. His loyalty was to the club. It should have been the easiest thing in the world for him to pull that trigger. But he couldn’t.

He just couldn’t do it.

He looked at Rose. She was sitting there, holding the man she loved and watching him die. His heart filled up with sympathy for her. She’d been through so much. She’d suffered more than any woman should suffer in this life. That had never sat right with Patrice. He’d really loved her. He’d allowed himself to fall for her in those few days that he’d been charged with guarding her at the motel. He’d allowed her deep into his heart and there wasn’t anything he could do about that now. He knew he still loved her. He’d hated what Serge and Fat Boy had made him do.

But he’d never felt he had any choice in the matter. He’d had to do what Serge told him to do. Life was unbearable for any man in Val-d’Or that didn’t sign up to the MC. The MC controlled everything, they owned everything, there was no other option. He’d never seen any man stand up to the MC in his life until Josh Carter showed up. It had never even really crossed his mind that a man could stand up to an organization as powerful and as brutal as the DRMC. But one man had had the courage. Josh Carter had done it. And that courage had awakened something in Patrice Dupuis. He’d seen the havoc that Josh had wreaked at the Cat and at the Val-d’Or clubhouse. He’d seen the chapter president and vice-president lying in pools of thick blood. He’d taken note of what could happen when one man wasn’t afraid to stand up to the powers that controlled everything.

He got down on his haunches so that he was close to Josh’s head. Josh was looking him in the eye, waiting for the bullet that was going to come and end his life.

Patrice leaned in close to Josh and put the gun up against the side of his head. Rose’s eyes were filled with complete terror. She was ready to hold Josh even as Patrice killed him.

Patrice looked into Josh’s eyes. He looked into the eyes of the dying man and he knew what it was he was looking for. He was looking for strength and courage, and he saw it. Josh Carter wasn’t dead yet. There was still fight in those eyes.

Patrice said something under his breath that only Josh could hear.

He said, “You ready for one last fight, cowboy?”

Josh was weak, he’d bled a lot and a lot of the life had drained out of him, but Patrice could see from his eyes that the answer was yes. He was ready for action.

In a single fluid motion Patrice let Josh grab a hold of the machine gun that was hanging round his neck and at the same time pointed his .38 at Murdoch and pulled the trigger. As Murdoch’s body flew back to the ground, Josh pointed the barrel of the machine gun at the two men behind Patrice and mowed them down with a hail of bullets.

That only left a single DRMC man still standing. He fumbled with the gun that was slung over his shoulder but he wasn’t fast enough. Rose had him in her sights and pulled the trigger. A bullet flew from her gun and through the man’s neck. The amount of blood that came from him was staggering. He slumped to the ground next to Murdoch.

XXXVII

R
OSE LOOKED AROUND HER.
She couldn’t believe what had just happened. All the DRMC men were down on the ground, dead or dying.

Josh was looking up at her. There seemed to be more strength in his eyes and in his face than had been there before.

“Josh,” she said. “Are you alright?”

“I’m alright,” he said. “I’ll be alright. Just get me to a doctor.”

The fact that the bullet had gone clean through him might actually have saved his life. The wound was very clean and it seemed to be bleeding less than it had been before Rose had put the bandage on it. No major veins or arteries had been affected.

She looked at Patrice. He’d saved them but she found it difficult to talk to him, she found it difficult even to be in the same place as him, but she needed his help to get Josh out of there.

“Do you think he’ll be alright,” she said to Patrice.

“He’ll be alright,” Patrice said. “I bet he’s had a lot worse than a bullet through the shoulder.”

Josh nodded his head. “All the same, I would like to get this seen to. There’s a group of indians not far from here. They’ll be able to help us.”

Rose and Patrice were able to get Josh up and onto his feet and they helped him over to the bikes.

“What are we going to do with all these bodies,” Rose said.

She looked over the DRMC men that were strewn around the clearing. Some of the men were still alive but they were badly injured. There wasn’t much hope for them even if they could have gotten an ambulance out to the clearing.

“I know more riders are headed this way,” Patrice said. “They’re coming up from the chapter in Jonquière. They’ll be here soon.”

“Let them take care of their own,” Josh said. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

*

R
OSE WAS WORRIED ABOUT JOSH
riding his own bike but he insisted.

“I’m not risking slowing you down if we need to outrun some more riders,” Josh said to Rose when she asked him to get on her bike.

She didn’t like it but there was no point arguing with Josh. He led the way out of the clearing back down the track toward the highway and Rose and Patrice followed him. It felt very strange for Rose to be riding next to Patrice but she tried to focus on the task at hand. They got through the forest track and Josh led them north on the highway. Rose was glad because if what Patrice had said was true, more DRMC riders would be headed in from the south.

They rode back a few miles and passed the crashed motorcycle that had hit the trap Josh laid earlier. The DRMC guys had simply left their companion where he’d fallen by the side of the road. Rose didn’t look at his body as she rode past it. She stayed close to Josh and they rode on another few miles till they got to a place where another logging track crossed the road. Josh pulled off the highway and they followed him up the track. It was very similar to the one they’d taken to the clearing except this one seemed to have seen more use. The grass was worn down on it and the surface had been pounded to hard dirt.

The track continued for many miles through the forest, rising higher and higher into the hills to the west. They had to cross a number of shallow streams and Rose began to wonder how far they were going when she saw the signs of settlement up ahead. The first thing she saw was a line of woodsmoke rising from the trees but then she saw more signs, some snowmobiles on a trailer by the side of the track, coils of rope tied to the trees, even an electrical wire leading to a wire-framed lightbulb on a tree. She also saw that some of the maple trees had been tapped.

They rode up to a small settlement of log cabins. Rose could see that the people were First Nations. They seemed to lead a very traditional life. There were children running around barefoot, a few dogs prowling around, and a big fire in the middle of the clearing.

Rose watched warily as a group of men came out of the cabins to face them. They were all carrying rifles and didn’t look very friendly.

“Looks like we might have some trouble,” Patrice said.

“Who goes there?” one of the men from the cabins called out at them in French.

“Don’t worry,” Josh said as he removed his helmet. “These people are my friends.”

When the men saw Josh their demeanor changed immediately. They could tell that he was injured and three of them came and helped him from his motorcycle and brought him straight to their medicine man. Rose followed hesitantly, unsure of whether or not she was permitted to come. She told Patrice to stay with the bikes.

One of the men looked her over and then beckoned her into the medicine cabin. She followed inside and watched as they helped Josh onto a bed in the middle of the room.

“He’ll be okay now,” one of the men said to her as he began helping Josh out of his jacket. “Who did this to him?”

Rose looked at Josh. He lay on his back and closed his eyes while the medicine man proceeded to examine the gunshot wound.

“Are they following you?” the man said.

“Oh,” Rose said. “It was the DRMC, they might be searching for us but they didn’t follow us here.”

“We heard the gunfire,” the man said.

“Yes, that was us.”

“And what about the man outside? He wears the DRMC patch.”

Rose looked back out through the open door at Patrice. He was waiting by the bikes, looking around. She felt she could trust him. She knew how easy it would be for him to turn around and tell the DRMC where this place was, she knew that would endanger not just her and Josh but the entire community that lived there. The safest thing would have been to tell the men to apprehend him, but she didn’t.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “He’s a friend.”

XXXVIII

R
OSE WATCHED THE DOCTOR WORK
on Josh’s wound. The bullet had gone clear through but it had struck bone on its way. The bone seemed to have splintered and there were shards of it that had to be taken out. It was horrific to watch. When the doctor went in with the forceps Josh was in agony. He tried not to show it but it was obvious that the pain was overwhelming. Rose watched for as long as she could and when Josh finally went unconscious the men in the room told her she could leave.

“You can’t do anything for him in here,” one of them said.

She left the room and almost fainted as she shut the door behind her. The fresh air was good.

“You look pale.”

She looked up. It was Patrice. He was still standing with the bikes. He seemed to think it was necessary to guard them from the half-naked children that were playing by the fire.

“It was pretty brutal in there.”

“I thought it was a clean shot through,” Patrice said.

“It hit bone.”

Patrice winced. “Shit,” he said. “I’ve seen that happen before.”

Rose nodded. Patrice looked around the camp. “This is quite a place,” he said.

She nodded. He seemed to be making smalltalk to hide how awkward he felt. She wasn’t surprised that he felt uncomfortable. He’d raped her after all. She was surprised that she could even stand in his company. She’d have thought it would have her shaking to stand so close to him after everything that had happened. She’d hardly laid eyes on him since the incident. He’d avoided her. She knew that what Serge and Fat Boy had done never sat well with Patrice. She knew he hadn’t liked it. That didn’t make him innocent. That didn’t even mean she’d forgiven him. But it did help her understand a little why he was acting so sheepishly now in front of her.