Sons of Mayhem 3: War and Vengeance
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Authors: Nikki Pink
Sons of Mayhem 3: WAR AND VENGEANCE
Sons of Mayhem, Volume 3
By Nikki Pink
Published by Nikki Pink, 2013
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
SONS OF MAYHEM 3: WAR AND VENGEANCE
First edition. October 26, 2013.
Copyright © 2013 Nikki Pink.
Written by Nikki Pink.
This is the third book in the Sons of Mayhem serial. If you haven
’t read the first two yet I suggest you do so first:
Sons of Mayhem
1: Oil and Leather
Sons of Mayhem 2
: Blood and Whisky
I also like to give my regular readers a great deal: I launch ALL my new titles at a reduced price for just 48 hours. I email all my regular readers so that they can make the most of this deal. (If you wait for Amazon to email you it may be too late!)
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’d like to join my email list to hear about new book launches please go to:
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~Love Nikki
Jase
There’s a time for peace and a time for war. There’s a time to forgive and forget, to negotiate and make amends, to make agreements and agree to let sleeping dogs lie. And then there are times when you have to gather your crew, grab your weapons and kick some serious fucking ass. When Jase saw the staring unseeing eyes of his friend he knew what time it was.
The clubhouse was quiet as Jase sat in a booth, his left hand grasping Nicole’s far too tightly, his right holding a glass of whisky far too early. There were angry and sad mutterings as the members of the club slowly drifted in as the news spread. The air was tense and the possibility of violence hung like a dark cloud over the room. The sadness they felt overshadowed by anger, a quiet seething rage that they knew had to be sated. Now the men were waiting. Waiting for leadership, waiting to be told what to do, who to beat, who to punish, who to shoot or maim.
He didn
’t speak as he let the rage roil inside him. There was nothing he wanted better than to grab some weapons and go shoot every last Mexican fuckhead he could find. But it wasn’t time, not yet.
His eyes shot to the front of the room as the clubhouse door smashed open and the Doctor hurried in, spotting Jase immediately and heading over.
At last.
The other members, hangers on and pledges gave quiet nods or single words of greeting; no one dared to interrupt him.
The Doctor stood over the booth and his expression was grim, his eyes filled with pain.
“I just got the news. Let’s go.” He nodded his head in the direction of the meeting room.
Jase released Nicole
’s hand, surprised at how tight his grip was and that she hadn’t complained. As he got up to follow the Doctor he glanced over his shoulder and gave Nicole a wan smile as he left. Even after last night and the shock of the morning she still looked good. Seeing her sitting there lit a tiny spark of warmth in his cold heart, immediately extinguished when he remembered what had happened.
There was a heavy weight in Jase
’s stomach as he walked across the room, side by side with the Doctor, everyone’s eyes on them. With Bigfella absent it was up to them to make the decisions for the club, to guide them, and most importantly, to get revenge.
The doors swung closed as Jase and the Doctor sat down across from each other, next to where Bigfella should have been sitting.
“What the fuck, Jase?”
“What the fuck.” Jase agreed.
The Doctor looked him in the eyes. Jase thought he could see some hesitancy, as if he was looking at him for approval, or guidance or… something. “What are we going to do? What the hell’s going on?”
Jase sighed, his fingers digging into his palms as he squeezed his fists tight.
“Someone’s fucking with us, Doc. This shit with Bigfella? This shit with the Mexicans? Someone’s motherfuckin’ playing us.”
The Doctor nodded.
“What are we going to do?”
His stomach in knots, Jase spoke words he wondered if he
’d regret. “The Mexicans
killed
Brodie. Our brother. My friend. They killed him. He was on a motherfuckin’ mission of peace. And those burrito-eating fuckheads murdered him. They believed the fuckin’ sheriff that it was Bigfella that shot their men? Fuckheads. I don’t give a fuck if someone is playing us, or playing them. We have to avenge Brodie. Then we’ll worry about every-fucking-thing else.”
The Doctor sat in a silence for a second, two, three. A pang of doubt flashed across Jase
’s mind.
Am I wrong, Doc? We have to avenge Brody, right? Please don’t suggest we meet with them…
A look of almost relief flashed across Doc’s face. “Agreed. Even if someone is playing us off against the Mexicans those bean-eaters fucked up.”
Fucked up? Brodie
’s dead. It’s more than a fuck up.
“We need to go to war, Doc. And if we do this, we can’t just punish those fuckers. We don’t want tit for tat fucking murders. No. We’re gonna destroy them.”
Jase watched as the Doctor gulped.
Can you handle it, medicine man?
“Can you…” His voice trailed off.
Jase asked,
“Can I do it?”
The Doctor nodded.
“I
have
to do it. It was
Brodie
.”
“Of course. I mean, do we have the men? The… equipment?”
Weapons.
Jase thought for a moment. “They’re going to be expecting us to respond. We’re going to need a plan.” The room was silent for a moment as Jase thought while the Doctor looked on expectantly. “We’re going to have to keep this close. I mean real, real close. But I think we should bring Gauge in.”
The Doctor raised his eyebrows. It would be a risk, bringing in Gauge. He was just a pledge at the moment, but he had skills they would need.
“How long has it been?”
Jase thought for a moment.
“When was the funeral? Fourteen months ago?”
The Doctor nodded. Almost fourteen months ago to the day another Son had died. Killed on the road after a truck tire blew, startling the almost sleeping truck driver who swerved his rig straight into Wrench who was passing him.
That was when Gauge had come in to town. Wrench hadn’t just been a Son, in a previous life he’d been a soldier. 182nd US airborne. The toughest motherfuckers in all of the armed forces; at least that’s what he’d claimed. Gauge showed up for the funeral and had been invited to the wake when they found out he’d been just as much of a brother to Wrench as the Sons had.
And then Gauge never really left again. He worked for Jase
’s security company and had been biding his time. He’d been a hang-around for a few months, before formally becoming a
pledge -
what some other clubs called a
prospect.
The process of becoming a member normally took two or three years, maybe longer if they were young.
Is fourteen months enough?
They sat in silent contemplation as they considered the idea of bringing Gauge in.
“Do you trust him?
Really
trust him?”
Jase sighed.
I do. But should I?
“Yes. Since he started working for me he’s been a rock.
Solid
, always there. He doesn’t fuck around and he gets shit done. And fuck, I think we’re gonna need him.”
The Doctor nodded.
“You think he’ll be up to the task?”
Jase laughed. It was a cold, humorless laugh.
“Doc, Gauge killed more towel-heads in Iraq than I’ve had hot dinners. And he won’t even fucking talk about what happened in Somalia, Cambodia or Af-fuckin-ghanistan. Me? I can shoot a gun, I can hold my own in a fight. That guy? He spent 20 years as Uncle Sam’s personal killing machine. Y’know what my plan would be? We get
everyone
we know, ride into little Mexico and then shoot every last taco-munching fucker. But somehow, I don’t think that’d work. But Gauge? He’ll know what to do.”
The Doctor laughed.
“Well we need to put it to the table. See if anyone else has any suggestions. But go talk to him, get him ready, I doubt anyone will vote against him. Let’s try and get shit rolling by tonight.”
Jase nodded. Gauge would no doubt be sleeping now. He would have been working until the clubs closed last night and wouldn
’t be up until noon at the earliest. He lived out in the middle of nowhere ‘off the grid’ as he called it. Not even a phone. He wouldn’t have a clue what was going on.
Jase looked at the Doctor again. He was beginning to feel better. The ball of icy rage in the pit of his stomach was heating up. Talking things over was helping. Now he needed action.
“Anything else?”
“Yeah. Just so you know, I’ve taken leave from the hospital. Until this shit is sorted.”
Jase raised an eyebrow.
Can doctors do that?
“The club will appreciate it.”
A tight smile pressed on the Doctor
’s lips. “And I think we should go on lock-down, for now. Until the wake at least, or until this shit is sorted. No hangarounds, no party chicks, no other randoms.”
“Good idea. I’ll clear the place out in a minute. And the cops?”
The Doctor looked surprised at the question, as if he hadn’t considered it. “Nothing. We know nothing. We tell them nothing. We handle this shit ourselves.”
Jase was in complete agreement. What good could the cops do? The best case scenario would be arresting Brodie
’s murderer and them getting executed in ten or twenty years, or however goddamn long it took these days.
Fuck that shit
. Justice needed to be served the old fashioned way.
The men stood up. The Doctor placed a hand on Jase
’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “Try and keep everyone calm. We don’t want anyone going off half-cocked and getting themselves killed. Let’s handle this properly.”
Jase pulled the doctor towards him and hugged him hard. They smacked each other
’s backs before breaking off.
Why does it take shit like this to finally feel close? We’re supposed to be brothers, it should be like this all the time.
The men left the room together and all eyes were on them, seeking guidance, wanting to know just exactly how they were going to get their revenge. And no one wanted revenge more than Jase. He felt sick at the thought, but he knew he
’d have to bide his time.
Soon, fuckheads. Soon.
Nicole
I didn
’t feel like speaking much, and nor did Lucy or Jase. When he’d come out of the meeting room, his face had been grim, but different to when he’d gone in. He didn’t look any happier - who could in a fucked up situation like that - but there was a new look of determination on his face. It was a look that said,
I’m going to make things right.
He thumped on the rickety counter of the bar to get everyone
’s attention. He hadn’t needed to of course, all eyes were on him already. “If you’re not a member or a pledge we’re going to need you to leave. Everyone!” His voice boomed across the room and no one dared to question him. His voice meant business and I could feel the underlying rage boiling underneath his barely controlled voice. I shivered a little and assumed he meant me too. Even though I’d done nothing wrong I still felt nervous.
I pushed myself up from the table and wondered what to do.
Will someone call me a taxi? I don’t even know where we are
.
Maybe I
should
have insisted on a taxi for me and Lucy. But no, Jase came over. “I’ll drive you two back. I’ve got some errands to run.” His voice was different to yesterday. He wasn’t being cold, exactly, but there was a harshness and disinterest that hadn’t been there before. It was like he was only half there.
Not surprising, poor guy.
He led me over to where Lucy was sitting, head down, at a table. She looked younger than her twenty one year
’s sitting there in yesterday’s skimpy outfit; like a young teenager dressing up far beyond her years. She raised her head dully as we approached.
“Let’s go Lucy. Let’s go back to the dorm.”
She nodded, though from her eyes you wouldn’t have known she’d comprehended what I’d said. They were empty of emotion, though the trails down through her ruined makeup showed where she’d been crying before.
She’s spent
.
A few minutes later we sat in the front of a pickup truck. Jase was driving, I was next to him, and Lucy sat with her head pressed against the window, staring at the dull desert scenery as we left the compound and headed back to the college.
I stared forward as we drove down the road. It felt strange now to be going almost sixty miles an hour and not feel the wind rushing through my hair and over my body.
Has it only been a day? It seems like a lifetime ago I left old Nicole behind
.
I turned to watch Jase as he drove. He was holding the steering wheel with one hand, the other arm resting on the door. I could see the tendons in his forearm flexing as he controlled the truck. Around his wrist I noticed a tattoo written in cursive script. Due to the steering wheel and the angle of his arm I couldn
’t read it properly.
My fingers ran over the soft hairs of his wrist as I indicated the tattoo.
“What does it say?”
Jase glanced down as if he
’d forgotten what was on his wrist and needed to check himself. His expression turned cold when he saw where my fingers rested. I gulped.
“It’s bullshit.”
“Oh.” I didn’t know what to say. It was obviously a sensitive issue.
Jase sighed and spoke again,
“I got it when I was young. In high school. Me and…” his voice trailed off.
“Brodie?” My voice was soft.
Poor guy. I can see he’s hurting so bad. Has he even cried?
He nodded.
“He got it too. We were fuckin’ idiots. Hadn’t lived. Didn’t know what we were doing.”
I wondered what could be so bad. I could make out what looked like
love
, and
none
, but I wasn’t sure what the rest said. “Even if it’s stupid, at least you’ll have it to remember him by.”
God that sounds trite. You’re still an idiot Nicole.
He placed his other hand on to the steering wheel and held his wrist out in front of my face, twisting it slowly. I read the words out loud as I deciphered the cursive on his thick wrist.
“Love All. Trust Few. Do harm to none.”
“It’s fucking bullshit, right?”
I think it sounds nice.
“Where is it from?”
Lucy opened her mouth for the first time since we
’d got in the truck. “Shakespeare.” She looked at Jase for confirmation.
“Yeah. But it’s fucking bullshit. ‘Love all’? Am I supposed to love the fuckhead who whacked Brodie? ‘Do harm to none?’ Am I just going to turn the other cheek? Fuck that shit.”
“Fuck that shit.” Lucy repeated in agreement as she turned her head back to the window. There was a dull thump as she rested her head back against it. She didn’t speak again the rest of the trip.
“I guess.”
They’ve got a point. Sometimes you’ve got to do harm, right? Even if it’s just a little bit. Like those meth heads yesterday.
I remembered standing over them, feeling the power we had over them, willing Jase to push down harder with his boot as they squirmed.
I pulled my feet up onto the bench-seat and hugged my legs with my arms.
“So what’s going to happen? Do you think the police will catch whoever did it?”
“The police won’t do shit.”
“No?”
“No. Sometimes in life you have to settle things yourself. Especially if you’re people like me, like us.”
Am I part of that, ‘us’?
“So what’s going to happen?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
Don’t you trust me? How could you, I guess. We only met yesterday. Who am I to you?
“Sorry. Just, y’know. I hope you get whoever did it.”
He didn’t reply and we spent most of the rest of the journey in silence. It wasn’t an awkward silence, but it wasn’t quite comfortable either. I hugged my legs tightly and squeezed my eyes shut.
I found myself lost in my thoughts. Dark, dangerous thoughts. I imagined things I
’d never imagined before, never even imagined imagining before. A vision flashed across my mind unbidden. I saw Jase standing and grinning triumphant. But the grin was maniacal. In his left hand was a knife, a big combat knife, and his right hand was a severed head which he clutched by the hair. The head’s mouth was open in a voiceless scream and the eyes were rolled back so only the whites were showing.
I gasped loudly.
“What is it?”
“Nothing. I dozed off.”
The vision hung in the back of my mind.
Do it. Do it Jase, get those fuckers who murdered your friend.
The journey only took half an hour, but it felt much longer. He drove the pickup to the front of our dorm, ignoring the prominent
“No Parking” sign. We all got out of the truck, and walked up to the front door, one of us on either side of Jase.
He placed a hand on the bare skin of my lower back, guiding me forward. It felt good. His other arm was wrapped protectively around Lucy
’s shoulder. I punched in my code to unlock the door and we walked in. A bookish looking sophomore saw us and gulped, before hurriedly turning his head away.
I frowned for a moment. Then I realized. Lucy and I were dressed up like sluts, our makeup was all over our faces, and last night wasn
’t even Halloween.
And I couldn’t give a fuck. Run away little boy.
“Which way?”
“Up the stairs.” I said with a nod of my head in the direction we needed to follow.
We walked up to our floor and headed to our room. As we walked down the hallway it all seemed so childish to me. Each of the doors were decorated with signs displaying the occupants
’ names and whatever pictures or other artwork they’d decided to decorate it with. There were hearts and stars, glitter and cartoon puppies, rainbows and lipstick kisses. Coming back here after the previous 24 hours felt like going back to kindergarten after high school.
“Yoo hoo! Nicole! Lucy!”
Ugh. Belinda.
She was the RA and one of the most irritating people I’d ever met.
“Hi Belinda. Bye Belinda.”
I don’t have time for your shit today Belinda.
“Make sure you have him out by se-ven” she sing-sanged.
While we were allowed guests during the day, all male visitors had to be out by seven p.m. and, like all the other rules, this was gleefully enforced by Belinda. If there was a male in your room, no matter how quietly they snuck in, Belinda would be there like an annoying fairy-godmother the second the clock struck 7, hammering on the door with a cry of “Ro-meo, time to go-ohhh!”
Most irritatingly of all, Belinda
’s room was right next to ours. We joked that she spent most of her evenings with a glass pressed against the adjoining wall, listening to make sure we hadn’t sneaked a boy in or a can of beer.
I pulled out the room key from the tiny pocket on the front of my shorts. There was no ring, or chain with it, but even so it had been digging in to my leg for the past day. We entered the room quickly leaving an inanely smiling Belinda outside in the hallway.
I pulled Jase over to my side of the room where we sat on the edge of the bed. Lucy walked over to her closet. I watched as she unzipped the sides of her boots, and then, lifting her legs high into the air one after the other like a ballerina, pulled the boots off and dropped them onto the floor. She was much more elegant than me at that.
Practice, I guess.
"I'm going to take a bath." She reached into her closet and pulled out one of her large white fluffy towels. Lucy was famed for her long baths and I knew we wouldn't see her again for at least an hour, maybe two. She grabbed a few items of clothing and her plastic basket filled with a dozen or more soaps, shampoos and creams and headed out the door.
She looks so innocent. Is that really the girl who fucked two bikers yesterday?
I reached my hand over to Jase
’s and gave it a squeeze. He squeezed it back, sighed and let his body fall back on to the bed. I looked down at him. Laying there with his eyes closed he looked exhausted.
I sat on the edge of the bed, leaned forward and pulled off my own boots. I knew that if I tried to do it the same way Lucy had, raising my legs into the air while standing up, I would have toppled over. I didn
’t try.
With my boots off I lay back next to Jase. I felt dirty. I
was
dirty - my hair was full of the reek of smoke and there were still gray stains and smudges from dust and dirt on my body. I resolved to have a shower as soon as Jase left.
When my head hit the bed next to his our faces turned to each other and he opened his eyes. We gazed at each other, unspeaking. Nothing needed to be said. Nothing
could
be said. Too much had happened in too short a time. But still not enough.
I felt an aching inside me, a needing want to be held, to be touched, to be filled. After the craziness we
’d been through I wanted the reassurance of strong arms around me and someone holding me tight.
And Jase? What did he need? I think he needed a release. So soon after losing his friend I knew he was seething inside, I knew he wanted to do something, to get revenge; but he couldn
’t, at least not yet. But he was still full up with pent up emotions and feelings - he had needs to be released.
His eyes widened as he stared into mine. For thirty seconds, and then a minute, we simply looked at each other. But as we stared I could feel myself burning up. Adrenaline was rushing through my body and my aching muscles felt revitalized. I could have sworn I could feel the heat emanating from his body filling the gap between us. We stared, and we looked, and our breathing became shallower and faster. I gulped. He swallowed.
Then he was on me. One moment we were laying in tense silence, the next was filled with a flurry of movement, of rushed gasps and surprised moans. The t-shirt Lucy and I had so carefully worked on the day before was ripped open and flung aside.
My skin-showing jean-shorts were yanked down and tossed away, my panties going with them. In seconds I was shoved backwards onto the bed, naked and bare, my legs spread open offering myself to him. I felt no shame or embarrassment, no fear or worry. My body was covered in goosebumps as I lay before him, consumed by lust, waiting for him to take me.
He reared up from the bed and yanked off his shirt. I couldn’t help but shiver as I once again saw his carved and tattooed chest and flat stomach above me. His eyes were wild as he yanked open his belt and pulled down his jeans and underwear.
Take me. Do me. Fuck me.
His eyes were crazed, like an animal - there was no romance in our first time, it was pure lust, pure desire, pure need and release. He yanked off his boots and pants and then he was upon me. There was no cuddling and no gentle kisses, there was no teasing or foreplay or will-we, won
’t-we.
Jase grabbed my ankles in his strong grip and forced my legs up around my head. I bit my lip and moaned as I saw him kneeling before me as he rapidly positioned himself. And then my quiet moan turned to a gasp as he shoved himself forward, thrusting into me. I was hot and wet and ready but the force of the sudden intrusion sent a lurch through my stomach and I let out a little shriek.