Whiskey Neat (The Uncertain Saints MC Book 1) (25 page)

The bookshelf that spanned the entire width of the room started to move to the side, revealing a plain white room beyond it.

Then the shooting started.

I dove behind the desk I’d upended, and the rest of the men found their own cover behind various chairs and couches.

We didn’t waste time in opening fire.

Men that came out shooting had something to hide.

“Does he have a fuckin’ machine gun?” Wolf yelled as the bullets started to tear through the room.

Boom-boom-boom.

Over and over and over, the shots came, not slowing down whatsoever.

“Sounds like he kept one of those belt fed AR-15’s he was trying to unload in Arkansas a few months ago,” I yelled.

We knew, eventually, the ammo would run dry, all we had to do was hold on until that happened.

Or we would have, had the man handling the AR known how to handle a gun.

Apparently, he only knew how to sell them, because only moments after the shooting started, a scream of pain and panic filled the room.

I chanced poking my head around the heavy wood desk, and started laughing when I saw Perry on the floor, crying because he’d burned his hands.

“That barrel gets hot when you shoot that many rounds through it that fast, dip shit!” Mig called as he slowly stepped out from behind a recliner.

I moved from behind the desk, and approached the man slowly.

Even though our intel told us there were five men in the house, there could’ve just as easily been more.

And I wasn’t one to take the words of common criminals.

But luck was with us.

As Mig got to the man first, he cleared the room and moved the AR away from Perry’s blistered and bleeding hands.

“That looks like it hurts,” Casten said, kicking Perry’s hand with one steel toe, booted foot.

Perry screamed.

I might, or might not have, laughed.

I was a sadistic bastard like that, though.

“Now,” I said, crouching down on my haunches. “You’re going to tell me why this bill was so important that you felt it was necessary to kill my son to get it passed.” I leaned forward slightly, letting Perry see my eyes. “And you’re going to make me understand. Because I gotta tell you, man, I’m having a hard time, struggling to stay in control here, seeing as I have the man who pulled the trigger in holding, and I’m looking at the man, who claims to be a man of God, that gave the order. So, start talking, and you’d best not leave anything out.”

When he didn’t move fast enough, Mig delivered a vicious stomp onto Perry’s blistered hands.

Perry screamed.

Once again, I smiled.

Did I mention I loved my brothers?

I want to make a difference, and I can make thirty differences per magazine.

-Bumper Sticker

Griffin

“Should’ve known it was because of his fuckin’ kid,” Wolf said as he and I walked side-by-side into the hospital. “That’s the only thing that can motivate a man into acting so stupidly.
Family.
It’s always the same fuckin’ thing, day in and day out. They sure know how to fuck you over, every single time.”

I didn’t comment.

I’d have done anything…
absolutely anything
…to protect Tanner.

But if he was a grown man like Ellis Perry, Tanner would’ve been on his own.

I’d learned over the last four hours of the interrogation of the elder Perry that his son, Ellis, had gotten himself into trouble just because of the fact that he was a dumbass.

If Perry had been smart, he never would’ve sent his son to do a man’s job.

Not that Ellis Perry didn’t qualify as a man at twenty years of age…he did.

Ellis Perry had been transporting the goods his father had had shipped from the Gulf of Mexico to a small town in Arkansas when he’d gotten pulled over at the border of Texas and Arkansas

All would’ve been fine had he not left a small packet of weed out on his front seat.

Ellis, thinking the best thing he could do in this situation was not to lie, had told the officer that it was weed when he’d asked about it.

So the officer had arrested him, then his car had been searched for other illegal contraband.

The officer thought he’d be getting more drugs…he’d been wrong.

He’d found over fifty AR-15’s in crates that had been hidden by the camper over the truck bed.

It’d made the young officer’s career…and had ruined Ellis Perry’s life.

So his father did what all fathers want to do, but most don’t act on.

He’d protected his son, and had started threatening people to get what he wanted.

When that didn’t work, he moved to blackmail.

When that still didn’t work, he moved on to killing someone else’s son to get his point across.

Needless to say, it’d worked.

Justin had caved immediately.

What Perry didn’t count on was me.

Nobody ever did.

I was vastly underestimated.

“I’m gonna run by the cafeteria…do you want some coffee?” Wolf asked.

I nodded.

I hadn’t had anything to eat in well over two days.

As Wolf parted ways with me, I walked quickly to Lenore’s room, anxious to see her.

However, I froze outside of her room when I saw Remy talking to Lenore.

He had her hand in his, and he was talking to her in low tones.

“He’s a dangerous man, Lennie. He’s always going to bring danger to your home, because that’s what his job is. He’s a Texas Ranger. He’s not going to give up his job, and even if he did do that, he won’t give up his motorcycle club,” Remy said. “They’re a bunch of vigilantes with vendettas. They’ll forever try to right the wrongs of society, because that’s just the type of men they are.”

“I don’t care. I want him to be happy. If I die because of something he’s involved in, it was meant to be. I love him. I won’t let you persuade me otherwise,” Lenore’s soft, melodic voice said.

I closed my eyes.

Was my life appropriate for a woman?

Would me being who I was endanger her?

And if I did endanger her, would she be able to protect herself?

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that she couldn’t.

She didn’t have the skills to protect herself, and even if I did teach her self-defense, she didn’t have the mentality to shoot someone.

Although she was a spunky woman with an amazing attitude on life, she didn’t have what it would take to live with protecting someone by taking their life.

And she might have to do that if she stayed with me.

I’d do everything I could to protect her, but there wasn’t a way for me to protect her for the rest of our lives.

At some point, she’d be alone.

Just like my son had been.

And look where my son had ended up.

Dead.

As these nasty thoughts sifted through my head, I backed up further and further until I was at the end of the hall.

Then even further until I was at the elevators.

And as the doors closed on the floor that Lenore was on, I realized that I’d just made my decision.

Lenore would find someone else.

She’d find someone…someone like Remy…that would be able to protect her.

That would be a good father to her kids.

That could actually have kids with her that would be protected.

I exited the elevator with my heart in my throat.

I got on my bike…and rode.

I didn’t have a destination in mind.

But anywhere would be better than there.

Anywhere would be better that didn’t remind me of
her
.

Three days later

“You should’ve listened to me, Justin,” I said, hunkering down so I could look straight into Justin’s eyes. “You should’ve done what I said, but you didn’t.”

I moved my knife to run along the fucker’s throat.

The tip of the knife dragged along his delicate skin, leaving a faint white line as it did.

It didn’t cut the surface of his skin, but it did let him know I was serious.

“I want you to know,” I said, putting both of my elbows on my knees. “That I will forever be watching you. When you get out of this prison in fifteen years, I’ll be there waiting to take you home. I’ll be with you every step, ensuring that you never live another happy day for the rest of your years.”

Justin squeezed his eyes shut.

“I’m sorry,” he cried. “Thank you for saving my wife.”

I glared at him. “At one point she was my wife, too.
She may be a bitch, but nobody deserves what you had a hand in doing to her.
No thanks needed.”

I shook my head, dropped the knife into the cup holder of my work car, and got out.

I dragged Justin out, pulling him into the police station by his arm.

Once I was at the desk that would allow me to turn over my suspect, I gave one last word of advice to Justin before I left.

“Make sure you watch your back. Wouldn’t want some overzealous inmate doing anything bad to you.”

With that parting comment, I left, smiling.

The next fifteen years would be absolutely terrible for him, and I promised about four prisoners cigarettes once a week if they ensured it.

Money well spent.

One day later

I stared at the man who’d shot my child.

Stared at him so long that his body was strung tight with tension.

“I’m tying up loose ends,” I said finally.

The man was a cocky little asshole, one who’d been hired by Perry to fake a drive by shooting and had given the man what he’d thought was a ‘fake gun.’

The man hadn’t known what he was getting into.

But that didn’t negate the fact that his hand had been the one holding the gun that’d killed my baby boy.

His finger had pulled that trigger.

Whether he’d meant to do it or not, was beside the point.

It was time for him to be a man.

Own up to his mistakes.

“You should’ve told the cops what had happened in the first place instead of running to that piece of shit Perry. He didn’t protect you. And you shouldn’t have been protected in the first place. You should’ve realized that this whole goddamned thing was fucking wrong. That it wasn’t right. If you needed money, you should’ve gone and gotten a job like the rest of the world has to do,” I growled.

Ellis Perry’s best friend, Carter Womack, looked like he’d been through a thousand wars.

And he had.

“Let’s go,” I said, pointing to the police station. “Make sure you tell them what I told you.”

The club had had him locked up at headquarters for days while we extracted every single bit of information from him.

Now that we no longer needed him, it was time he went to where he was forever going to be.

His court appearance was just formality.

He’d be going to prison.

He’d spend the rest of his life behind bars.

Or he’d die.

I’d given him that option—but he’d asked to be put in prison—so he could think about his sins for the rest of his life.

And I was happy to oblige.
Not that I believed him when he said he wanted to think about his sins for the rest of his life. The little fucker thought he’d get out, that someone would break him out if they had to. That wasn’t going to be the case in this instance, though.

The man didn’t deserve anything less.

None of Perry’s goons did.

I wouldn’t stop until every last one of them either died or spent the rest of their lives paying for what part they played in my son’s death, whether directly or indirectly.

I didn’t believe in Karma.

Karma was something that people that weren’t willing to defend themselves believed in.

Karma was the coward’s way out.

Life’s a bitch, and karma comes in the form of my fists for those that think they can get away with taking the easy way out.

One day later

“Keep up your meds,” I said to my father as I opened the door to the car.

My father glared at me as he stood up, wincing only slightly as he put weight on his weak leg.

He’d been shot in the back, just above his left hip.

The bullet had clipped a nerve as it passed through, and dad was still having trouble putting too much weight on it without it collapsing out from under him.

Hence why I’d brought him to my mom.

Which had been where he wanted to go in the first place.

Apparently, they’d been carrying on right under my nose for years, and neither one had thought it important to tell me.

“He has to stay off his leg as much as possible for the next week. He needs to start physical therapy within the next four days, here are his papers,” I told my mother as my father walked away from both of us.

My mother smiled up at me.

The smile quickly died as she caught the look in my eyes, then narrowed her eyes.

“What’s wrong with you?” She asked softly.

I shook my head.

“Nothing you can fix. Gotta go.”

I ignored her urging me to wait, and instead walked back to my side of the car, dropped my ass into the seat, and took off down the road, getting out of there as fast as the gas pedal would let me.

Where, I didn’t know.

But again, anywhere but there.

I hate being sexy, but I’m a bearded man. I can’t help it.

-Fact of Life

Lenore

Karma was a bitch.

And I hoped Griffin’s balls rotted off.

I hated crying. It made my head hurt.

But right now I couldn’t make myself stop.

I’d been crying for three hours now.

I’d gotten out of the hospital to find myself dropped off at Griffin’s house.

Alison had picked me up, and she’d taken me to Griffin’s house…where there was no sign of Griffin
anywhere
.

Alison handed me a rhinestone-encrusted tiara keychain, and had waved goodbye in less than twenty minutes.

Woodenly, I’d gone into Griffin’s house and was flabbergasted at what I saw.

The entire place was furnished.

No more did it have second hand knockoffs.

Now the whole place was decorated in the rich colors that I loved.