Under Fire (Winged Enemy MC Romance) (11 page)

The more I tried to stop them, the harder they wanted to come, and I had to cut off a sob as it escaped my body. As though sensing weakness and wanting to pile on, the injury to my hand started to feel even worse, shooting pains running up my arm to the point that I could barely concentrate on feeling sorry for myself.

I dimly heard a motorcycle pull up, but I couldn’t even force myself to raise my head up to see who it was at first. Only the thought that it could be the murderer gave me the energy to slip my gun out of its holster and take off the safety. I held it ready at my side in case I needed to fire quickly.

Shoes scuffed the pavement as the owner made no attempt to be stealthy.

“Who’s there?” I called. I winced as my voice quavered.

“It’s Zach. Is that Leslie?”

“Yes. What the hell are you doing out alone? You know you shouldn’t be out and about without at least a couple other members.”

He appeared in the pool of light cast by the bar’s lights. A nonchalant shrug graced his shoulders. “I know, I forgot until I was already out on the road by myself anyways. At that point I was already halfway here, so I thought I’d just finish the trip. I’ve just been sitting at home by myself catching snippets of news through texts, it’s bullshit. I wanted to come and find out what’s actually happening.”

I had just driven across town alone myself, so I couldn’t sustain my aura of authority, especially with tears tracking down my face. “Just as well, I suppose. After what happened to Tim it’s obvious that being home isn’t necessarily the safest thing either. There are a couple of guys inside, and also…” I couldn’t bring myself to say Jed or Kat’s names. “Why don’t you go inside, I’ll be in in just a few minutes?”

Zach sat down on the curb in front of me as though he hadn’t heard a word I’d spoken. “Feeling crappy?”

I tried to hide my feelings, but it was just too much. Everything was too much.
I don’t know why everything seems to blow up in the space of two days in this town, but I could use a bit of a break next time.

“Yes.” I didn’t want to elaborate.

“Is it because of Jed and Kat?”

So the young guy can spot the signs of a love triangle, can he?

“If I say no, will you stop asking questions?”

He shook his head. “It’s usually better to talk things through. I’ve learned that much, at least. I guess it’s been pretty hard for you to watch them as they start to repair what they had before, isn’t it?”

“Oof. You know, for a guy who just counseled me to talk through things so I feel better, you sure know how to put a dagger through a lady’s heart, don’t you?”

A cloud passed over his face, and I wondered why until I realized the wording I used.

“Oh shit. I’m sorry Zach. After the way Tim went… that was crass of me, I apologize. I shouldn’t be doing any joking at all right now, not with this mood.”

“That’s ok, Leslie. You’ve always been nice to me, most of the guys treat me as the butt of the joke all the time. I guess that’s the price I pay for being the newest member as a replacement.”

“I think that’s just guy culture. They rip on each other all the time, it’s not just you.” I looked at him sideways. “How much do you actually know about Kat?”

He eyed me. “Is this about her and Jed? Or is this something different?”

He is way too quick for a teenager.

“Let’s say it’s about her and Jed. Do you have any idea what her history is like?”

He picked up a couple stones and skipped them across the road while he considered his words. “I know that they were in love. Like, really in love. The kind you couldn’t fake if you tried. Then something blew up between them and Frank, and she left. She never came back, and I don’t think anyone knew where she went. Jed was hard to be around back then. I was a lot younger, obviously, but I remember that he never really laughed much after that.”

“That sounds rough.” As much as I knew about Jed, which was a huge amount considering my resources and the preparation I had done for the undercover role, there were still things that I didn’t really know about. “So no one knows what happened to her between then and now? We have no idea how she spent her time or what kind of crowd she fell in with?”

“Are you trying to ask if she turned into the type of person who could attack people she used to care about?”

I had asked too many leading questions. I might as well have just told Zach my suspicions. I hoped that he would be discreet about it. “Let’s say I’m asking that.”

“Let’s put it this way,” he said. “I think there’s only one person in this town who could have gotten to that point, and once you have all the facts that should lead you straight to them, shouldn’t it?”

A wise young man, here.

Before I could continue questioning Zach, the sound of several motorcycles roaring down the streets echoed up the road. We looked at each other and by unspoken accord got to our feet just as a few hogs ripped around the corner and screeched to a halt in front of the Roost.

I hailed the lead man, Luke.

“What’s going on?” There was urgency to their movements. It telegraphed that they weren’t just coming to spend time at the bar.

A grim look settled over the man’s bearded face. ”It’s Nathan. He’s been shot.”

Not him, too.

There had been a sense of inevitability around it. Someone had to be the next target. That it was Nathan wasn’t a surprise considering those who had been in line before. First Frank, then Patrick. Jed, then Tim. It was only a matter of time until the dog of war came barking up Nathan’s tree. There was no telling if I would be next in line or if the fire would just bypass me completely.

“Is he alive?” Zach asked.

Luke nodded. “Barely. He’s in rough shape, but we’ve called an ambulance.”

I cut him off before he continued. “We might as well go into the bar so the others can hear and you don’t have to repeat yourself.”

We walked in, and I tried my hardest not to stare in Jed’s direction as we did so.

Has Kat been with Jed the entire time? If so then maybe she isn’t the killer. But there’s nothing saying that she doesn’t have an accomplice. Or, for that matter, that she isn’t acting as the accomplice for someone else.

Luke restated what happened and after the initial shock and dismay wore down he elaborated further. “Nathan was leaving Tim’s house to ride to the headquarters. A couple of us still at the house heard what sounded like distant gun fire a short while later, so a few of us went to check it out. We found him face down in the gutter, two wounds in his back.” He spat on the ground in disgust. “It looked like he’d been shot in the back as he rode by.”

Anger mutters from the other men laced the room. I couldn’t blame them. I felt like doing some angry muttering myself. There was little hope for anyone on a motorcycle to stand a chance against someone using tactics that dirty.

The hope I had felt when Luke had said that Nathan was alive faded. There would be no chance that the older man had seen who the assailant was if he’d been shot off his bike while riding by.

“That’s it,” Jed said. “Let’s go and see to him. Everyone’s coming, I’m not leaving a single man behind to get picked off like stray sheep.”

There was no argument from anyone present.

We got into or on our assorted vehicles and rode off in a big caravan. It would have been funny if it hadn’t been for such a serious reason. It was the dead of night and there were seven motorcycles and my little car trundling along the town’s streets at a sedate pace. When we got to where the others guarded Nathan, the flashing lights of the ambulance were already there.

Over half the club was out on the random side street, milling around. I hung back a little as Jed and Kat went to go check on Nathan before the paramedics drove off with him to the hospital.

“Hey Trank,” I pulled on the elbow of one of the men who had been at the Devil’s Roost when I had gotten there. “Do you know if Jed and Kat got to the bar together? Did they ride in at the same time?”

I had noticed that each of them now had a motorcycle, but they had left Tim’s on the same one.

“No, Jed got there first. Kat was only there for a few minutes before Luke and them came to tell us about Nathan.”

Fuck.
Hoping for an answer to quell my doubts about her, now I had nothing but reason to believe that Kat was the source of the pain and suffering that beset the motorcycle club.

Jed whistled for silence. Accustomed to following his orders, the unruly bikers fell quiet.

“Men, we’re at war with whoever did this. We are going to find them, and we are going to make them pay for what they’ve done in our town.”

A grim roar sprang from the throats of the assembled bikers at the prospect of bringing someone to their version of justice. They didn’t like feeling useless and in danger, and Jed offered them a chance to feel on top again.

“We’re all going to come back to the club headquarters, every single one of us, and then we are going to formulate our plan of attack. This sick son of a bitch is going to pay for messing with the Winged Enemy!”

Another cheer, and then motorcycle after motorcycle began to kick to life. The air filled with revving engines as a dozen bikers got ready to declare their freedom from tyranny.

I got into my car. I had a choice to make.

Do I go to the headquarters and raise a big stink, and try to get everyone to turn on Kat?
That might backfire. I had been around for a few weeks longer than her, but she had history with the gang and I was still an outsider. Judging from Jed’s reaction I doubt that it would be so easy to convince them that she was most likely the killer. Logic paled in comparison to the importance of human interactions when most people made decisions.

Uneasy with my choice, I let myself trail off behind the others, and then turned off. I drove back to my apartment, aware that I could be making a huge mistake.

I need to finally report what’s going on here. I’ll do that in the morning and then I’ll request backup. Arnold’s going to tear me a new asshole when he finds out that I’ve been silent through all this crap, but better late than never.

I checked the time as I fell into bed. Two thirty AM. It felt later, with all that had happened that day. My hand felt like a lump of coal, a painful, throbbing mess. I’d have to get it looked at in the morning as well.

My thoughts ran in circles as I drifted off to sleep.

A soft click penetrated my dreams. I lay there with my eyes closed, and felt even wearier than when I first hit head to pillow. It seemed like only a second ago.

I raised my head to look at the clock. Four.
Why the hell am I awake?

A slight noise out in the front room caught my attention.

Is that Jed? Did he come to find me when I didn’t show up at the headquarters?

I felt touched before the thought had time to get picked apart by my analytical mind, busily working away even as my conscious thoughts crawled at a snail’s pace.

Jed had never snuck into my apartment before. It wasn’t his style. And he especially wouldn’t try to make as little noise as possible once he was inside. My hackles raised as my thoughts grew cleaner and clearer.

Guided by instinct, I slid out of the bed on the side further from the bedroom door. I winced as the bed sheets rasped across my skin in what felt like an avalanche of sound to my ears. I lay flat on the floor, breathing as quietly and shallow as possible in order to not make any noise.

Light filtered in through the blinds from the street outside, but I hoped it wasn’t enough for the intruder to really see what they were doing. I could sense a presence in the doorway and tensed, although I didn’t dare move a muscle.

Pew. Pew. Pew.

A silenced gun. I hadn’t heard one of those for a while. I crawled down to the corner of the bed and peered around, head close to the floor. Booted feet stood there, peering over the bed. I gathered my legs under myself and when the attacker went to flip the covers back I shouted and sprang forward.

“Ahh!” I hoped the noise and sudden flurry would take the assassin by surprise.