Sons of Anarchy: Bratva (16 page)

“Just you,” he told Jax. “Your friends can make themselves comfortable on the patio.”

A goateed man with startling scars on his face looked disappointed. “Any chance of a cup of coffee?”

Carney heard the mix of burr and brogue in his voice and smiled. “You’re not a guest. You’re a stranger who woke me in the middle of the night.”

The man beside him, pale and bearded with his hair tied back in a small knot, nodded. “He does have a point.”

Jax slid the glass door open and entered the kitchen as the other four made themselves comfortable on the patio furniture, sprawling as if they hadn’t a care in the world. They weren’t worried about him killing them with his shotgun, which told him they had no intention of trying to kill
him
. But he hadn’t gone to Oscar Temple’s house thinking anyone was going to die, either.

“Lock it behind you,” he told Jax, who complied without complaint.

“Can I sit down?” the man asked.

“You’re not getting coffee, either,” Carney told him.

Jax smiled, but it turned to a wince. Carney flicked on the light above the kitchen table, and now he saw the bruises and swelling on his visitor’s face.

“Rough night?”

“I’m alive,” Jax replied. “I’d like to stay that way, and keep Trinity alive, too.”

“She told me her name was Caitlin Dunphy. I heard one of ’em call her Trinity, but I didn’t put it together that it was her name till you said so. I would’ve known who you meant regardless, though. You resemble her a little. Plus, she’s the only woman I’ve run into in a long time that I figure might cause armed men to show up on my patio. How did you all get here, anyway? You got a van out front?”

“Bikes,” Jax said.

Carney almost laughed at the image of these five leg breakers riding bicycles out here with the lizards and dust devils. Then he realized the guy meant motorcycles, and his humor dissipated. Had he slept through the roar of five approaching engines? A disturbing thought. If they’d meant to do him harm, he really
would
have been dead by now.

He lowered the shotgun and leaned against the counter.

You’re crazy
.
Letting this man into your house
.

Motorcycles might mean they were part of a biker gang. That made a certain sense. He’d caught a glimpse of what looked like some kind of logo on the vest that the big red-bearded bastard had been wearing out on the patio. Oscar Temple dealt illegal guns—a
shitload
of illegal guns—and Jax’s sister had been trying to make a deal with him on behalf of some Russians.

“You involved in the gun business, too?” Carney asked.

Jax cocked his head. “I’m told you used to be pretty involved yourself.”

“I’m not casting aspersions, lad. Just trying to figure out all the connections here.”

“The only connection that’s relevant is that I’m a concerned brother. I don’t want to involve you in anything that’s going to cause you trouble—”

“Your sister involved me already,” Carney said.

Jax nodded, said nothing more.

Carney sighed deeply and then shrugged. “She did save my life, I suppose. Though it wouldn’t have needed saving if I’d never met her.”

Jax opened his hands, palms up as if in surrender. “Question is, What are you gonna do right now? Tonight?”

Carney turned the question over in his head. He glanced out at the men on the patio. Would there be consequences for the wrong answer? Jax seemed intense, but not intimidating. Was it an act?

“I spoke to the police already,” he said, hesitating.

“I can hear a ‘but’ coming.”

Carney raised the shotgun slightly, barely noticing that he’d done it. Maybe his subconscious mind wasn’t as sure of Jax’s motivations as his conscious mind was.

“I liked her the moment I met her,” Carney went on.

“She has that effect,” Jax said.

“I didn’t want the police to find her, but I wasn’t just protecting her.”

“You were protecting yourself. Makes sense. I figure you told the police being up there at the ranch was a coincidence, but whatever deal Trinity and her boys were trying to strike with Temple, you were a broker. Maybe coming out of retirement?”

“One night only, like all the great Vegas comebacks,” Carney said. “Anyway, I wasn’t in a hurry to help the cops track them down.”

Jax leaned across the table, blue eyes alight. “So you do know where they went?”

Carney’s hands felt sweaty on the metal of the shotgun. “No. But someone else might. One of the men your sister was with mentioned a name, after the killing was done. Something about how they had to make sure they couldn’t be tracked back, or Drinkwater would have to find them a new place.”

“That name mean something to you?”

“Louis Drinkwater is a local real estate guy. Never met him, but I’ve seen him in the papers. He’s had his share of legal trouble.”

Jax stood abruptly, the chair scraping linoleum. Carney flinched, raised the shotgun, but Jax had almost forgotten he was there. The biker unlocked the slider and snapped at his men.

“Let’s go,” he said. “The night is young.”

“Drinkwater has a lot more money that I do,” Carney said. “Probably has better security, too. Maybe you oughta wait till morning.”

Jax stepped onto the patio, then turned to look back through the door. “If I get my sister home safe, we’re both gonna owe you one. Thanks for your help. And sorry again for waking you.”

I did it for her, not for you,
he wanted to say. But the men were leaving and taking their guns with them, so he thought it best not to antagonize them.

*   *   *

Jax liked to ride late at night, when the world was quiet and dark. Even if he wasn’t riding alone, it still felt like solitude. Even more so with the dry wind blowing down from Desert Hills and Red Rock Canyon. They’d gone south to visit Carney, but now it was past one o’clock in the morning and they were roaring along the beltway with Jax in front and the other guys riding two by two. Joyce had put in a few hours at the Tombstone and then met up with them before the visit to Carney.

Headlights strafed Jax from a truck headed the other direction. He let himself drift back to Belfast, back to his first meeting with Trinity. They had recognized something in each other that had been difficult to identify. She had a core decency that he admired, but also blunt, rough edges. She wasn’t a part of the RIRA, but her family was inextricably linked to it, and maybe being raised in that family wasn’t so different from Jax’s life with SAMCRO. He’d practically been born on the back of a Harley, heir apparent to the gavel.

He’d felt a kinship with Trinity even before he’d learned they were actually kin … and they’d learned that bit of truth just in time. The connection between them had been powerful. They’d been halfway undressed and well on their way to enthusiastic, if unintentional, incest. If their mothers hadn’t interrupted, and immediately revealed the truth to avoid any chance of a second try … The memory made his stomach turn into an awkward knot, but not nearly as awkward as if the revelation had come a day later.

Jax didn’t like to think about it, and he was sure Trinity shared that reluctance. With the violence and chaos that had erupted around SAMCRO’s visit to Belfast, they hadn’t really had a chance to figure out what it meant to be brother and sister before Jax had to return to the States. He wondered if their awkwardness would prevent them from figuring that out now. Hoped it wouldn’t.

A low roar came from his left, and he looked over to see Opie riding up alongside him. Opie tilted his head, indicating something behind them. Jax cast a look back and spotted a silver BMW gliding along. He and Opie exchanged another silent communication. Was someone tailing them?

Jax slowed, letting Chibs, Joyce, and Thor pass him, and he took another glance backward to be certain of what he thought he’d seen. Sure enough, two men on bikes were following the BMW.

He saw an exit sign for Cheyenne Avenue, twisted the throttle, and blew past the others, signaling them to follow as he left the beltway. At the bottom of the exit ramp, he turned west, away from civilization instead of toward it. Opie and the rest followed him, but so had the BMW and the two assholes on motorcycles. He raced beneath the overpass and then skidded to a halt, propping the bike on its stand before taking cover. Then he drew his gun.

Opie, Thor, and Joyce did the same on the opposite side of the street. Thor moved up against the concrete foundation of the overpass, using the corner to shield himself.

Chibs skidded up beside Jax and jumped off his bike.

The BMW slowed as it rolled beneath the overpass, and the two men riding behind it throttled down. The car’s driver had seen them pull over—he couldn’t have missed it—and given their body language, the way they were taking cover, the way they all held their gun hands down at their sides, just out of sight, even an ordinary citizen would have known they were ready for a fight.

The BMW did not turn around, only rolled slowly until it stopped in the middle of the street, dead center in what would be the cross fire if bullets flew. The two guys on motorcycles—sleek red Kawasakis—halted fifty yards back, far enough that they could bolt if things turned ugly, report back to the boss.

The passenger window of the BMW slid down. In the darkness of the underpass, without even starlight to illuminate the face of the man inside, Jax could not make him out. A dome light inside the BMW clicked, and he flinched, surprised that the men inside would expose themselves like that.

The guy in the passenger seat was Viktor Krupin. He looked pale but fairly hearty considering he’d been shot in the shoulder a few hours earlier.

“Mr. Ashby,” Krupin said, his voice echoing against the concrete sides and roof of the underpass. The BMW purred, and the two Kawasakis growled quietly. “I would have thought the beating my boss gave you earlier would have discouraged you from breaking your agreement with us.”

Jax stared at him, thinking fast. Either Lagoshin had a way to track them or one of the Russians had been tailing them since the Orthodox church. Both options seemed unlikely.

“I haven’t broken any agreement,” he said, stepping out from behind his bike as he slid his gun back into his rear waistband. “And I figure if you’re up and riding around with that hole in your shoulder, it’d reflect badly on me if a couple of punches in the head kept me from doing the same.”

Krupin frowned. “You were to call me as soon as you had a lead on your sister’s location.”

Jax put up his hands. “That
was
the deal, but I don’t have shit. Just a string of names, people who might help narrow it all down for me. I didn’t see the point in boring you with that kinda thing. Figured once I had a location—”

“What
do
you have?” Krupin asked. He rested his elbow on the frame of the open window, deceivingly casual.

Jax’s whole body ached as he remembered the beating he’d received. “I’m not going to have you and Lagoshin going around beating the crap out of anyone who might have seen my sister. I want to find her, not scare her off … and I sure as hell don’t want you and Sokolov’s guys getting into a shooting match with her around.”

“We can guarantee her safety,” Krupin said reasonably.

“No one can guarantee her safety,” Jax replied. “Not even me.” He pointed up the road toward the men on the Kawasakis. “I’m gonna figure out where she is. Then I’m gonna get her out before the shooting starts. You want to send those two guys with us as insurance, that’s fine. I figure they’re gonna follow us anyway. Something happens that you won’t like, your guys can take care of business for you.”

Krupin narrowed his eyes. Jax could practically feel him searching for duplicity. The son of a bitch
knew
things weren’t what they seemed, but it was clear Krupin also felt very confident in Lagoshin’s ability to terrorize people. And Jax had no doubt that sending the two bikers to babysit him had been the plan from the outset, or Krupin wouldn’t have brought thugs on motorcycles.

Someone in the car began to speak to him in Russian. Krupin snapped angrily at the man, then opened his door and stepped out. Jax saw the driver of the BMW drawing a gun. Across the street, Opie, Joyce, and Thor still had their weapons out, ready for things to turn bloody.

Krupin beckoned to the Kawasaki riders, and the two men spurred their bikes forward, riding up to stop directly behind the BMW. They wore helmets, but when they raised their visors, Jax could see that one had gray eyes and one a cold blue. Krupin introduced them as Ustin and Luka.

“You go with him,” Krupin told them. “When you know the sister’s location, report back to me.” He turned to Jax. “Once I hear from them, you will have one hour to get your sister to safety. One hour. If you are still there when we arrive, or if you warn Sokolov and his men, you will all die together.”

Jax nodded slowly. Krupin stared at him a moment. Then he climbed into the BMW and it pulled away, power window gliding up. Despite all the talk of murder, Krupin had treated the whole thing like a business meeting, and Jax thought maybe that was all any of it was to him. Business. Nothing personal.

The thought made Jax want more than ever to shoot him.

As the others remounted their bikes, glaring at Ustin and Luka, Jax walked over to Thor, who sat on his idling Harley, putting on his helmet.

“Head back to the Tombstone,” he said quietly. “Tell Rollie what’s going on. Tell him I may need backup and that I need your club on standby. Stay with him till you hear from me.”

The big man scratched at his red beard. “You don’t want me to just
call
him?”

“No. I don’t.”

“I guess you don’t want to tell me why.”

Jax hardened his gaze. After a second, Thor just nodded, buckled his helmet, and took off without speaking to any of the others. Jax watched him go and then turned to his Russian babysitters.

“Try to keep up,” he said, and then he started for his bike.

12

Trinity and
Oleg had made love quietly, well aware of the proximity of his comrades. His brothers. After several nights of broken sleep and days of emotional exhaustion, she had curled into the comforting crook of his arm and fallen asleep listening to his heartbeat and trying to decipher the meaning of the tattoos on his chest.