Behold the Stars (24 page)

His smile was wide and happy, but then it faltered a little. “Will they just let you quit?”

She laughed. “It’s not indentured servitude, Isaac. I’m not a prisoner. They’ll have me sign a bunch of forms that say I’ll spend the rest of my days in Leavenworth if I talk about what I did, and then I’m out. Simple as that.”

Linking fingers and pulling her hand up for a kiss, he said, “Well, I think that’s fantastic. But get back to the main story. You have your dad’s badass cage. You want it here. What does that have to do with us gettin’ hitched?”

“How about, soon as this thing with Ellis is over, we fly out to California, pick up the ‘Cuda, and get married in Reno on the way home?” The more Lilli had considered the idea, the more she’d liked it. She could—would—be Lilli Accardo on that day.

But Isaac looked doubtful. “That’s a three-day ride. Three days in a cage? I don’t know if I can deal. You know how I get, cooped up like that.”

“Three days in a
fast
cage. My head in your lap.”

At that, he grinned. “Fair point. I’m in.”

~oOo~

“We need anything else?”

“Toilet paper. At least a couple of the big bulk packs. And, I don’t know. Like a couple of kids’ games or jigsaw puzzles, maybe?” Badger snorted at that, and Lilli was immediately aggravated. Hell, she’d already been aggravated. Now she was pissed. “What? We’re going on five days, and there’s nothing for the kids to do except play those video game things they all have.”

“Jigsaw puzzles, though? Geez, that’s like a grandma’s idea of fun. They’re fine. All they want to do is play those video game things—Nintendo DSs, by the way.” His grin was decidedly, slappably, condescending, but she forbore.

She wanted the errands to be over. She felt like shit. Apparently, passing out and being sick in the morning was a real thing, and she had it like gangbusters. She’d already bent twice over a toilet in the store’s restroom. Being cooped up in the clubhouse for days wasn’t helping. And then, this morning, they were out of almost everything, and she couldn’t even wait until she felt better to head to the store. Isaac had left early with most of the Horde. Feeling ill and petulant, she hadn’t called to tell him she and Badger were going out. The only reason she had Badge with her was that he’d caught her on her way and asked what it was she had against him, trying to get him killed so often.

So here she was, in the Walmart Megacenter or whatever they called it, getting teased by a skinny, pimply kid because she’d thought buying jigsaw puzzles would keep the six kids trapped in the lockdown happy.

“Fine. Fuck you. Get the toilet paper, and let’s just go.” She leaned on her shopping cart as another woozy wave came over her. Being pregnant sucked ass.

“You need to sit down again?” Badger sounded deeply worried. Probably less about her actual well being and more about what Isaac would do to him if she passed out in the middle of Walmart and conked her head.

“I’m fine, asshole. Get the stuff. I want to get out of here.” It was almost an hour drive back to the clubhouse. Why she was in such a rush to get back to that increasingly foul-smelling prison, she had no idea, except that she wanted to lie down. On the increasingly medieval fold-out sofa. At least she could get Pip cuddles.

Twenty minutes later, she walked their empty carts to a parking lot corral while Badger secured their purchases in the back of Isaac’s truck. On her way back, she was swept up in a wave of déjà vu, brought on as she remembered Isaac doing the same thing in Springfield, weeks ago now, on the day that Will Keller was killed.

Out of the periphery of her vision, she saw the blacked-out van driving toward Isaac’s truck. It took a couple of beats for her to understand her sense of foreboding and suspicion, and by then two things were true: the van had pulled in alongside their truck, and she had made it as far as the tailgate.

She reached for her bag, where her Sig was. But her bag was on the passenger seat, where’d she’d left it as she decided at the last minute to help Badger out with the carts.

Badger was squatting inside the truck bed, tightening down a tie. The side door of the van slid open, just as Lilli called out, “Badge! Get down!”

Instead of down, he popped up, searching for her. There was a low but clear and sickeningly familiar “pop,” and Badge went down, shot by a silenced handgun.

The shooter came out of the van—a well-built black man with short dreads. With no other choice, Lilli turned and ran, intending to use the cars in the lot for cover. Without her bag, she had no phone, no weapon, nothing. All she could use was the open, public space. But before she could get to the next car, she was on the ground, her right shoulder singing with pain.

Almost at once, the world went sideways and spun, warping and wending. Sound seemed stretched. She watched feet running up to her, and then she was being picked up. The pain in her shoulder was wrong, somehow. All of this was wrong.

Her last thought as a shimmery black curtain came down on her consciousness was, “They fucking tranq’d—”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Isaac rode toward Signal Bend with Show at his flank, and Len, Bart and Havoc rolling behind. They’d met Kenyon Berry at a secure location, off the grid. St. Louis was too hot for the Horde right now, but he’d needed to talk to Kenyon.

Kenyon was dealing with his own shit. The Horde’s payback on the Northsiders and Ellis, the day of the attacks on Show’s family and Lilli, had gone far too quietly. They’d been expected, and Kenyon had been the one to give Isaac the address of the stash house they’d fired. It had shaken Isaac hard to think that Kenyon had set him up. He hadn’t. Kenyon had a kink in his own line, one much worse than the Horde’s little college princess. Kenyon’s right hand, Marcus Grant, had given him that address. Marcus had flipped for Ellis.

He’d been dealt with, permanently, but the Underdawgs were in disarray. Marcus had flipped others, and now Kenyon trusted no one in his organization. Isaac had met a weary, watchful man at that off-the-grid location. Kenyon had come alone, unprotected, because he felt safer alone than out in the country with any of his crew.

Ellis had now gained one huge victory: he’d broken the Underdawgs, the only competition in the St. Louis metro area for his own lackeys, the Northside Knights. With that win, he’d quashed the Horde’s most powerful ally, put the Signal Bend meth business on life support, and made St. Louis a fucking deadly place for a man wearing the Flaming Mane patch.

They were losing. Their every gambit failed. Torturing and killing Marissa Halyard had served only to make Ellis take them more seriously as a threat instead of a nuisance. Lilli’s idea to use hackers had been their best shot. Rick and Bart had managed to hack in close, but they’d been tagged and kicked before they could accomplish anything. They had information, lots of information, but they couldn’t use any of it. They’d almost gotten all the way to his money. They knew where he lived. They knew his family, his habits. But he and his family were all protected as if every one of them was the fucking President of the United States. Isaac had briefly considered suggesting a sniper assassination, but Lilli was the only one they had with anything like that kind of skill, and no fucking way was that going to happen.

Everything they’d learned reinforced what Isaac had been told right off the bat and repeatedly since: Ellis was untouchable. He was too powerful, too connected, too careful. They could not beat him. Now, Isaac believed it.

The question weighing on him now was how he’d break it to the town. All his speechifying and rah-rah bullshit, telling them how they were the ones who’d stayed, so they were the ones who were strong—it was nothing but vapor. Now he had to tell them the hard truth: pack up and go, or make what peace with Ellis they could. They could not fight.

Isaac would not fight. Five days ago, he would have Bravehearted the fucker, ready to fight to the last man, exhorting these poor folk to stand with him. But Lilli was pregnant. It changed everything. He had to get his family out of this fucking mess. He couldn’t fight a futile war and face a certain death knowing that their child had taken root inside her. He wouldn’t.

Tonight, with their nearest and dearest packed into the rooms around them, the Horde would sit around their table, and Isaac would argue for conceding the fight. His read of his brothers was that the vote would be split but would go his way. Tomorrow, he’d tell the town. He was sure that soon thereafter, Signal Bend would be a ghost town, and the Night Horde MC a memory.

His heart was lead in his chest.

His burner went off in his pocket, and, without pulling up his bike, he reached for it and answered.

It was Dan. He, C.J., and Vic were on duty in town. “Boss, we got trouble.” Isaac heard gunfire in the background, and pulled his bike into the first gravel drive. The rest of the riders followed suit.

“What’s up, brother?”

“It’s like the fucking O.K. Corral or some shit, Isaac. Five, maybe six SUVs rolled down Main Street and started shooting. People started shooting back, and they pulled up and puked out a lot of guys from those trucks. Now, man, I ain’t jokin’. We got a Wild West situation.” There was a burst of automatic gunfire. “Except with much bigger guns.”

“Fuck! We whole?”

“For now, I think. Don’t know if anybody got hurt in the shops, but the club’s accounted for so far. We need help.”

“We’re comin’, brother. Hold on.”

He closed the phone and told Show, Len, Bart, and Havoc what was going on. Len asked, “What about the Scorps? Ain’t we getting backup from them?”

“Not due until late tonight. I’ll call Tug and get his ETA. Fuck. Get movin’. I’ll catch up. I’ll call Dom, too—stop at the clubhouse and load up. We can’t fight this with what we’re carrying.” Len, Bart and Havoc fired up their bikes again, and Isaac shouted, “WATCH YOUR BACK!” Havoc waved, and they peeled out.

Show sat, straddling his bike. Isaac glared at him. “Get outta here, Show. I’m right behind you after I talk to Tug and Dom.”

Show stood pat. “Not leaving you alone. Make your calls.”

Isaac didn’t have time to argue. First, he called the clubhouse and talked to Dom, whom he’d left in charge when he’d sent the Horde out in the morning. After he told him to get guns ready for the four of them to grab, and to lock down hard and pull everyone back from the Hall, the only space with windows, he ended that call and contacted Tug, the leader of the crew of five the Scorpions was sending from their nearest charter in Alabama. They were still four hours out, even if they pushed it.

~oOo~

On their way through the clubhouse gate, Isaac and Show passed Len, Bart, and Havoc heading back out. Dom was waiting for them, a crate of guns on the ground at his feet. As they loaded up, Isaac asked, “Where’s my old lady?”

“She and Badger went for supplies. Couple hours ago.”

Good. She was clear of this mess, then. He was pissed she didn’t tell him she was going, but he was glad she was away. “Call Badge, tell him to keep her away until he hears from me or Show.”

“Will do.” Dom picked up the empty crate and went back into the clubhouse.

Isaac turned to Show. “You ready, brother?”

“Nothing to lose.” Show fired up his bike. Isaac did as well, and they rode out toward the center of town, the gates of their compound closing behind them.

Dan was right. It was a scene straight out of the nineteenth century, except the technology was different. As they approached the main drag of Main Street shops, Isaac saw that most of the windows had been shot out. There were cars parked at forty-five-degree angles in front of the shops. Not many; it was a weekday, traffic was always light, and most of the shops were closed up this week, anyway, so they were mostly the cars of the shopkeepers. But several had taken heavy damage. Six vans and SUVs, all black and blacked out, were parked as if randomly sown down the middle of the street. These guys—Isaac had to assume they were Northsiders on a job for Ellis—hadn’t come in to do a drive-by. They were here to kill townspeople. Isaac had no idea if they’d yet succeeded.

Three men came around the nearest black SUV and started shooting; Isaac and Show veered off the street into an alley and dismounted as quickly as they could. Both had AKs strapped to their backs, holsters under each arm, and knives tied to their legs. They had hunting rifles, too. Country weapons, with which they were most comfortable.

Full-out war had come to Signal Bend.

They ran up to the building and flattened themselves against the wall. Just as Isaac turned to Show to tell him they needed to move forward, the back door of the shop on the other side of the wall opened, and Diane Lindel, the shop owner, leaned out, a double-barreled shotgun in her hands. “In here!,” she whisper-shouted, and Isaac and Show ducked in.

Once in the dim, crowded back room, Isaac looked back at Diane. She was a solid woman, maybe fifty years old, with short, iron-grey hair. A sensible, no-bullshit kind of woman. “What’s the story, Diane?”

She answered right away, looking up into Isaac’s eyes. More than a foot shorter than he, she carried herself like she was perfectly confident in her ability to kick even his ass if it came to it. “Dan and C.J. are holed up across the street in the ice cream shop. Seven people of use with them. We’re in phone contact—everyone on this side of the street grouped here. He said you were coming, told us to sit tight. You told us to be armed and ready, and we all are. There’s a few more guns in my backroom and plenty of ammo.” She cast a skeptical eye at the AKs Isaac and Show were sporting. “Not for those, but for the rest, we got ammo. You tell us what you want us to do, Ike. We’re together on this.”

“Who’s ‘we’?”

With a brusque nod, Diane led them through the back room into her shop—one of the several businesses selling used knickknacks and household goods on Main Street. Sitting in a line along the counter and back wall were ten people, seven of them armed. Three looked like they had been innocent, out-of-town shoppers, now caught up in Signal Bend’s drama. They were obviously terrified and confused.