Hard Rider (Bad Boy Bikers Book 1) (30 page)

“He's a good boy,” said Acero. “I've got a lot of good boys. You'd be surprised what they do.”

“And you, Colt?” Ram smiled and shook his head. “You know that'll ruin you. Big mister 'death of the biker gang.' Ain't that been your platform? And here are you are, working with them. Gotta say, that's gonna look
bad
.”

“Have you got proof?” asked Acero.

“You came here together, didn't you?”

“We came here at the same time,” said Colt, tapping the table with one finger. “Doesn't prove anything. And if that's all you got, boy, you better—”

“I've got proof. Tapes.”

This stopped Colt's words dead. His face paled and then became very flushed. His automatic response to fear was only to get angry. June had never quite put that together before.

To follow this up, Ram pulled out the envelope and put it on the table. From inside he pulled out a couple and let Colt see them.

Ram looked at Acero. “Did you know he tapes all his conversations?”

The heavy biker stared death at Colt. Acero brought a hand up to the knife on his chest, twisting his fingers over the handle. The gun in June's hands shook—if that hand started flying, so would her trigger finger.

“This true?” asked Acero.

Colt narrowed his eyes. “Let's say that it was. Why don't we just fucking kill you where you're sitting and forget about you like the rest of the fucking world?”

“If I don't make a call,” said Ram, holding up his phone, “every half-hour, then I've got a friend ready to send a select portion of those tapes over to every news station in Texas. The worst sorta section, the kind that has you arranging for arrests of rival gang members. That has you talking about the murder of one of your cops, and your decision to pin it on me even though you knew it was one of the Flags.”

“And let's say we agree. What then? What happens to the tapes? You'll give them up?”

“No. Those're mine, now. I think I'll find them pretty handy.”

“You're putting us in an awful hard corner, boy,” said Colt. “There's greatness that comes in magnanimity.”

Ram's lips pressed into a crooked smile. “If you're in a corner, under my shoe, then I'll know exactly where you are all the time, and that's what I want. The Flags go back to Mexico and stay the fuck out of my country. Out of our territory.” He looked at Acero. “And if you still want a war, fine—but you don't bring in the cops. And the cops stay out of Wrecking Crew business from now on, unless you want your face on the news for all the wrong reasons.”

“June'll kill you for this, you know,” said Colt. “She loves her Daddy.”

“You'd be surprised,” said Ram. “In fact,
fuck
you. That's another one of my conditions from now on. You stay the fuck out of June's life. You don't come by us. You don't talk to us. You get explicit permission every time you want to text her. Speak when spoken to, and no other time.”

Colt stood up, his hand drifting to his gun. June—unconsciously—felt her gun drift over towards him as he did.

It was like that, for her. That simple.

“You're gonna set terms with me about my
daughter
, you son-of-a-bitch?”

Ram stood up, not backing up by an inch. “I'm setting terms with you about my
wife
. And you can take them or leave them. This isn't a negotiation. It's a list of demands. You're my hostages.”

They glared at each other across the room. After a moment, Colt sat back down. The fight had left him—he had nowhere to go unless he wanted to get into a gunfight in a small cabin a hundred miles from the nearest hospital.

Acero leaned back, looking at the one man and then the other. He shook his head and tsked soundly.

“Tempers, boys. You both got such fucking tempers. You know,” he said, “we thought about teaming up with the Wrecking Crew instead of the cops for a while? It was a sort of fifty-fifty decision. Push one or the other out. But you, Ram, you were most of the reason why we went with the cops. Beretta, he don't like you, and he makes a good, good damned case against you.”

“I'm sure he does,” said Ram. “I'll make one against him for you if you like.”

Beretta raised an eyebrow at this, stepping forward just slightly. Acero again waved him off.

“Do you want to know what I think?” said Acero. “About this situation? About your demands?”

“Not particularly.”

“I think that you're a polarizing figure, Ram. I think you need what you're asking more than I need anything from you. I think that, even if you came out with these tapes, put it on the news, tell all the media and reporters and whoever, the Black Flags would survive. Handily, we'd survive. I think that earlier today, a little bird told me that you're not even in the Wrecking Crew anymore. Which means you don't have any friends anymore...and that means you're full of shit.”

Everything became sudden and unreal.

Acero tossed the table over on Colt and drew on Ram. Ram, caught off-guard, pulled out his own gun but was far too late.

Shots filled the small cabin, the sound becoming the air, becoming everything that June heard. Acero's shot went far off-center—a torrent of lead unleashing into his body.

June found herself pulling the trigger almost against her will—pulling it until the trigger clicked empty. The shots powered into Acero's back, ripping through his clothes and flesh—and yet still he stood up.

He pulled his knife down, breathing like an incoming train. “Fuckin'...fuckin'
gut
you...”

All June had done was delay him—and now her gun was empty.

Ram was hit by Acero's initial volley—hard in the arm, blood streaking down from his shoulder. His gun lost on the floor, slid up against the mattress near the wall.

Beretta saved Ram. He shot his boss in the head as Acero raised his arm to fire again.

Colt had been looking on, stunned at the proceedings, but finally cleared himself up from beneath the table. Beretta turned on him, but too slow. Three hard bangs filled the cabin; Colt shot Beretta in the gut and whipped to turn on the defenseless Ram.

June couldn't wait any longer.

“Dad, no!”

Dropping her gun, she leapt out from the small closet and between her Colt and Ram, hoping like hell her father wouldn't shoot her too.

Colt's eyes were wild, calculating. He licked his lips, their surface dry and cracked from the heat.

He didn't shoot anymore. Instead, he grabbed her and whipped Ram over the head with his pistol. Then he grabbed the envelope full of tapes and rushed June out to his car.

––––––––

T
hey were going way too fast.

The patrol car shook as Colt sped down the curvy lanes, sliding in and out of the lanes and scraping gravel on the shoulder. It was dark. The headlines skidded across the hilly, rocky landscape like a bad skier.

He was on the radio. “This is Sheriff Colt. I require immediate back-up on Highway 90, sixty miles West of Marlowe.”

Some chattering came through, confusion. June couldn't quite catch it all—focusing on the increasing long slides of every turn he made.

“Just send someone out here! Everyone, dammit! Officer under fire!”

They slammed into yet another turn, Colt throwing the radio down. This was like a bad roller coaster.

June banged against the door on one turn, grunting in pain. “Slow down!”

But he wouldn't slow down—and his loaded gun still pointed at her. The trees swooped by faster and faster, a green blur outside. June thought she was going to be sick. If the collision didn't kill them when they flew off the road, then the discharge from his gun probably would.

“Please, slow down,” she said, her voice carrying a strange calm. “Dad, please.”

“Goddamn
pissants
,” Colt snapped, clearly not talking to her. “Pissant
fucks
. All that work. All that
work
. Do you know what I've invested? What I put in?”

“Watch the road!”

The car swung wildly down a turn as Colt turned his attention back on the road, narrowly making a curve down the tall hill.

“Shut your goddamn mouth,” said Colt. “Distracting me. All the time distracting me. Your whore mouth and your whore words. Where have you been, huh? Where do you get off talking to me, telling
me
what to do? I'm the goddamn
law
in this county!”

A cold, serene voice told June not to say anything more to her father—that he might very well shoot her if she did. The gun still rocked in his hand, steering with the other, and even an angry gesture with it might fire.

Behind them, she could hear the unmistakable growl of Ram's bike, followed closely by Beretta's truck. The bike would have an easier time in the tight curves of the slope but would have to go slower without the extra traction a car provided. Still, though, she could hear them gaining. Colt's wild driving was doing him no favors in the speed department. For every inch he gained from going such insane velocities, he lost three when he had to recover from the long turns.

Soon she saw Ram in the rear mirror. Blood covered one side of his face from Colt's heavy blow. How Beretta was standing, breathing—let alone
driving—
after being shot was beyond her.

The end of the hilly road approached. If her father made it to the straightway on the highway, then Ram and Beretta would soon after, and then it would be a chase for sure. Scenarios ran through her mind, all of them awful—her father skidding his car into Ram, running him over and leaving him a broken mess in the asphalt, or maybe the two outlaws somehow flipping the car over and rolling her and her father to a quick, ugly death.

She had to take action. Anything was a gamble, but she wanted to be the decider of her fate. Not her father, not even Ram—but her and her alone.

On one particularly sharp turn, the gun wavered off of her for just a moment—long enough for her to act. She pushed the gun toward the windshield and took a hold of the wheel, spinning it hard to one side.

They careened off the road into the woods, into the trees, into every hard surface there was left in the world.

––––––––

R
am could hear sirens down the road, but he didn't care. His shoulder was shot through, but he didn't care. Beretta might die if he didn't get to the hospital soon, but he didn't care.

All that was on his mind was June.

The sheriff's car was going too fast—way too fast—and it had just wrapped itself into a tree.

Ram's heart caught as he saw the car twist off the road. There was a steep drop of about four feet from the road off into the section of forest it curved through. The car fishtailed hard into a huge pine tree, spilling the contents of the trunk onto the forest floor below.

He ran forward, paying no mind to the possibility that Colt was still conscious, still had a gun. A solitary hole could be seen in the spider-webbed windshield where a bullet shot off when the car wrecked.

It was impossible to tell if he'd fired the gun more during the chaos and din of the wreck.

If more shots had been fired...if he'd hurt June...

Colt would kill him, plain and simple. He might do it anyway.

He rushed to the car door and yanked it open with his good arm. It fell off the busted frame of the car in his hands, weakened by the crash. Inside, Colt and June were both dazed, eyes looking blank. June had a thick, ugly knot on the top of her head. Banged against the dash, most likely. Other than that, a few scrapes here and there, she seemed fine.

His heart felt like it was pumping again.

Quickly, he unhooked her seat belt and slipped her onto his arm, pulling her away. To feel her warmth after that filled him with an easy, earnest gratitude that made everything okay.

The slick, thick stench of gasoline filled the air. Probably the gas tank had been ruptured during the crash. It wouldn't be long before a spark caught against it and set the whole mess ablaze with Colt inside. June seemed to notice it too.

“You've got to get him,” said June. “Please.”

She didn't have to explain; didn't have to justify. If she wanted it, he would do it and sort out the mess later.

As Beretta pulled up behind them in his truck, Ram, leapt into action again. He came down to the awkward edge of the road, balancing carefully and entering the car once more. As he looked inside, he found himself staring down the barrel of a gun once more.

“Sunuvabitch,” Colt grunted, voice pained. “you give her back. You—”

Ram snatched the gun away and held it at Colt's head. Just for a moment, just to see what that was like.

It would be easy to kill him then, to have it done with.

But June didn't want him to. He tossed the gun out of the car into the heavy ankle-length grass.

Colt was a large man, built on a diet of steaks, beer, and fried food. But all the same Ram lifted him out of the car and rolled him out onto the street. His shoulder screamed in pain with every new movement, every push. It took more out of him than he expected—especially with a bullet hole pulsing out blood in his arm every new second.

He breathed hard on the road for a few seconds, waiting for the ache to leave his side from the pain jolting down his entire body. As he did, Colt lurched forward, lunging for the gun in Ram's belt.

Ram pushed him away easily, and Colt lunged again, groaning and grunting, grappling for position. Ram sent him to the ground and Colt roared back up to his feet.

It was going to be an all-out fight with this asshole. Ram lowered his shoulders, preparing to strike.

June stepped in front of him and slapped her father across the face.

“
Enough
, Dad.” Her voice was ragged but cool. She slapped him again, the same cheek, turning his head to one side. “That's enough. When does it end for you? This is enough.”

He looked down at her and a great weight seemed to leave him—his shoulders sagging, his knees giving out beneath him. He landed on the road and drew himself up into his knees.

His face was blank, eyes wide and almost catatonic. June walked over to Ram and drew herself into his arms.