The Sinner’s Tribe Motorcycle Club, Books 1-3 (83 page)

Jimmy settled himself on a huge leather chair in front of the stage and snapped his fingers. Gail swanned over to sit on his lap, making no effort to hide her smirk from Dawn.

Well, Dawn was more than happy to step aside. She would be even happier if she could get out of the building. Aside from the front entrance there were two more exits from the clubhouse. One directly across from her and one at the back. Both guarded from the inside. Her chances weren't looking so good.

“Put on the music.” Jimmy waved his .38 around like it was a Fourth of July flag. “Everyone join us. My ex is gonna dance the last fuckin' dance of her life. She's gonna show us the moves she used in the bar, but she's gonna be doing them for me and without her fucking clothes.”

The bikers cheered. Dawn's stomach heaved. But Jimmy wasn't finished. He held up a hand to quiet the crowd.

“When she's finished dancing, she's yours for the taking. I'm done with her, and that bitch's disrespect to me and to our club has gotta be addressed. Everyone can have a taste of what I threw away. No limits.”

This time only a few bikers cheered. The rest frowned or shifted in the seats. Were they Wolf's supporters? Given their number it looked like Wolf might have won the election if Jimmy hadn't killed him. Would they help her? She recognized some of their faces, but when she tried to make eye contact they looked away.

“Get to it, Dee-licious, or I'll start the gang bang now.”

“Hey, Mad Dog…” An old biker, potbellied, grizzled and balding, stood and pointed at Dawn. “I got no problem with her dancin'. Used to watch her at the strip joints long time ago and she was damn good. But what you're wanting to do to her next, that ain't us. We're not into raping and trading and slaving the girls no more, especially not the mother of your kids.”

She remembered Old Mick now, although he'd aged considerably since she'd last seen him. One of the quiet ones, and a good friend of Wolf.

Jimmy whispered to Gail and she giggled. Then he put his arm around her waist, aimed his. 38, and casually shot the biker in the leg. Old Mick howled and staggered back, falling heavily on the ground. Dawn's hand flew to her mouth. No one moved, and the shock on their faces suggested they were as stunned by Jimmy's arbitrary ruthlessness as she.

“Anyone else got a problem with the new regime?” Jimmy waved his gun back and forth, pointing it randomly at his brothers. “Old Mick was right. This ain't how Wolf would run the club. But I'm not Wolf. And he made pussies out of all of you. Viper and the Jacks can help us bring back the Brethren's legacy. They're gonna help us take our revenge on the Sinners and wipe them off the face of this fucking earth. Anyone got a problem with that, you know where to find the door. But I'll tell you now, I got no hesitation about shooting a coward in the back.”

Old Mick groaned and clutched his leg. Another seasoned biker whipped off his bandanna and wrapped it around Mick's thigh, while a third used this shirt to put pressure on the wound. Dawn fought back wave after wave of nausea. Bloated with power, Jimmy had finally gone off the rails. Did he not realize Viper had no intention of “helping” the Brethren? He needed their numbers and Jimmy's blind anger to help defeat the Sinners, simply because no other club would stand against them. And when Viper got what he wanted, he would destroy them. Jimmy was a pawn in the game.

Jimmy grinned into the silence. “Excellent. Everyone is on board.” He pointed his weapon at the two bikers helping Old Mick. “Leave him be. He can suffer through the show and think about the meaning of loyalty.”

One of the bikers knelt beside Old Mick and whispered something in his ear, while the other patted him on the shoulder. Then they took some seats.

“Now let's have some entertainment.”

Dawn stared at Jimmy. There was nothing left of the man who had saved her from the streets. Totally and utterly corrupted in his pursuit of power, he had become the monster she'd always known he could be.

“Dance, love,” he said. “Like your life depends on it. You can finish with a scream.”

*   *   *

Cade's anger was so deep, so fierce, he battered his knuckles bloody on the door. He'd had a bad feeling about Benson, but he'd chalked it up to pure jealousy, blinding himself to the wolf in fucking cop clothing.

He checked his phone again. No signal. No way of getting through the sheet of steel in front of him. Yet. But when he did, he would rain down a terror on the Jacks and Brethren the likes of which had never been seen in the biker world. And the fucking cop would pay in blood.

“Cade? You in there, brother?” Although muffled, he recognized the voice behind the door.

“Jagger?”

“Yeah. I'm with Zane, Gun, and Sparky. We got the prospect with us, too. He finally showed some initiative. He tracked you down with a GPS he put in all the new phones. Now he's doin' something with the door panel, hooking it up to his laptop.”

“I'm hacking into their system,” the prospect shouted.

“Hurry the fuck up. We got a rescue operation to perform.”

The door slid up with a smooth whir and then clanged into place. Cade stepped out into the hallway and heaved a sigh of relief.

“You forgot this, brother.” Jagger held up his cut.

Although his hand itched to take it, he didn't move. “I'm going after Mad Dog.”

“Not without us. We're a team. Brothers. No one gets left behind and no one goes out alone.”

Cade swallowed past the lump in his throat and shrugged on his cut, indulging himself for the briefest second by smoothing his hand over the cool leather. “I don't get it.”

“You don't have to make a choice. Whatever path you choose, we will always have your back. Just like you had ours.”

He needed to hear those words. With all that had happened he had lost sight of what was important. This was why he had joined the Sinners. Honor. Brotherhood. Loyalty. Men who would stand up for him. Men who always had his back.

His club.

His tribe.

Jagger nodded at the prospect who was detaching his computer from the panel. “If he hadn't followed you, we wouldn't have been able to pinpoint where you were so fast. The GPS lost you when you went into the building.”

Cade glared at the prospect. “You followed me?”

The prospect shrugged. “Lost my old man when he went out on a job without someone at his back. Figured you might need some help.”

“He left so fast, he forgot to put on his cut,” Jagger said, his lips quivering at the corners.

“Rule violation.” Gunner's mouth pressed into a thin line. “Not wearing his cut. He'll pay a penalty for that in blood.”

“And he followed a senior patch without permission.” Sparky winked and Cade fought back a smile. There was nothing the brothers enjoyed more than hazing a prospect.

“Suicide,” Gunner muttered. “Fuckin' suicide.”

“I'd call it plain stupid,” Zane cuffed the prospect on the head. “Disrespecting the cut is an automatic kick-out. Leaving the clubhouse without permission is a night in the dungeon with Dax followed by a kick-out.”

“Maybe I'll just shoot him,” Gunner said as they followed Jagger out of the cellblock. “Put him out of his misery.”

Jagger looked over his shoulder and glared at the prospect. “He also left his computer on. Penalty for wasting energy is death and an ass-kicking from me.”

“No point kicking his ass if he's already dead.” Sparky patted the prospect's shoulder. “I think he has value. and it'll be more fun to kick his ass and hear him scream. He finally showed some spine. It would be a shame to break it too soon.”

The prospect choked back a gasp, and Gunner snorted. “Dead or alive, an ass is an ass to me.”

Cade followed his brothers up the stairs, still trying to wrap his head around the incredible turn of events that meant (1) he was free; (2) he had his cut; (3) the Sinners were going to help him take down Mad Dog; and (4) he had been saved by a fucking prospect.

Time to give something back. “I think our prospect needs a name.”

“Geek.”

“Nerd.”

“Gigolo.”

Jagger stopped at the door and gave Cade a puzzled frown. “Gigolo?”

“Lookit him. The ladies will be falling all over themselves when he walks into a bar wearing his colors looking like some kinda frickin' biker movie star.”

Everyone turned to stare at the prospect.

“You're jealous,” Gunner said. “He's younger and prettier than you. You're afraid he's gonna steal your girls away.”

“He's welcome to them.” Cade stepped out into the cool, dark night. “Only one girl I want. But I need someone to take up the mantle, otherwise there are a lot of good titles out there that will be lost.”

“How 'bout Hacker?” Sparky tapped the prospect's laptop. “He's not much use in the field, but he sure as hell knew his stuff when it came to finding you and getting into that system—”

“Don't forget the screensaver.” Gunner cut him off. “Pretty damn cool to have our patch on every piece of tech in the clubhouse.”

“Vote,” Jagger called out from his bike. He'd parked between two police cars in a brazen show of sticking it to the cops.

Everyone lifted a hand.

“Hacker it is. Now let's go save an old lady and kick some Brethren ass. The rest of the brothers are waiting for us.”

 

TWENTY-SIX

I will let nothing stand in the way of justice. I will never hold back in the pursuit of revenge.

SINNER'S TRIBE CREED

The first notes of White Stripes' “Icky Thump” filled the room and Dawn stared at Jimmy. After everything that had happened, she was back where she started, except this time she was twenty-six instead of sixteen, and when she danced, it wouldn't be with fear and humiliation feeding Jimmy's ego. She had a confidence she'd never felt before. She had people who cared about her. And she had a man who would do anything to keep her safe. But first she had to save herself. But she needed a gun.

Dawn kicked out one leg and twirled around the pole, checking out the room for weapons and an exit. A low hum from the street muffled the pelvic-throbbing beat of the music, and she paused midstep. What was that noise? She looked to the front door and a few bikers did the same.

Thunder? The rev of an engine? The roar of a train?

The sound grew louder.

“What the hell is going on?” Jimmy pushed Gail off his lap and pointed at the biker nearest him. “Go. Find out.”

By now the sound was unmistakably that of a vehicle in full acceleration. Jimmy reached for his gun. The front door crumpled and the side of the building went with it, the sheet-metal-and-wood-frame structure collapsing under the weight of the massive black SUV barreling into the building. The clubhouse groaned under the impact. Pictures fell from walls. Beams crashed to the floor. Bikers shouted. Someone fired a gun.

Dawn ran. She didn't care who was in the vehicle or why it had come through the wall, but it was a chance of escape and she wasn't about to lose it.

The driver's-side door of the SUV swung open and Cade stepped out of the vehicle, his face a mask of fury. Using the door as a shield he sprayed bullets across the room, covering Dawn as she ran toward him. Cold, determined, calculating, he moved with confidence and purpose, scattering the Brethren in a shower of steel.

Dawn hit the vehicle running and reached for the door just as two pit bulls came racing through the hole in the wall. They went straight for Cade, knocking him to the ground. Cade lost his weapon as he fell. “Run, Dawn. Get the fuck out.”

Like hell I will
. She dropped to the ground and rolled under the vehicle, staying behind the wheel well as she reached for Cade's gun. She dragged it toward her by the handle, struggling with its weight.
Okay
. It was some kind of submachine gun. Not quite the same as her little .22 but she just had to pull the trigger.

Cade struggled with the dogs. One of them bit his arm and he cursed. The other clamped its jaws firmly around his leg, and Dawn slid her finger over the trigger, hoping a few rounds would scare them off.

“Heel.” Jimmy's voice echoed through the clubhouse. He snapped his fingers and the dogs released Cade. “Not so brave now, are you?” He crouched beside Cade with his weapon pointed at Cade's head while the dogs salivated beside him. Dawn couldn't see Jimmy's face but she could imagine the smirk. He always smirked before he hit her.

“Up.” Jimmy barked the command and Cade heaved himself to his feet. Dawn shifted closer to the edge of the vehicle, and one of the dogs growled.
Damn
.

“You picked the wrong fucking brother and the wrong fucking club to mess with when you got involved with my old lady.” Jimmy's voice slid through her like ice. “Shootin' you dead is gonna be too easy. Your death is gonna be nice and slow. I'm gonna film every minute of it and send it the Sinners so they know what's coming for them.”

“I think you better be worried about what's coming for you.”

Dawn drew the gun close to her chest. The dogs barked. A furry black face appeared under the vehicle and she slid back. The SUV rocked above her. Was someone inside?

“Hiding, love?” Jimmy raised his voice loud enough for her to hear. She could see his boots just in front of her. The same boots he'd used when he'd kicked her repeatedly in the stomach, trying to make her lose her babies.

“Don't think I've forgotten about you. Just in case you feel left out, you're gonna suffer, too.”

Dawn leaned up on her elbows, shoved the gun between her breasts and fired. Jimmy screamed. The gun whacked her chin on recoil and her head jerked back, hitting the undercarriage with a painful thud.

Jimmy fell to the ground and into Dawn's line of sight. His weapon dropped to the side. “Jesus fucking Christ. The bitch just shot my fucking toe.”