Ignoring everybody else, he answered me, “Living up to my promise.”
What did that mean?
Before I could get another word out, he bellowed out to Nik as he stormed toward the sedan, “You want her? Come and fucking get her! Let’s get this bullshit over and done with!”
The Strikers pulled their pieces, training them on Mason, all of them looking more than a little trigger happy.
“Your SAA's got some balls,” Nik commented to Slade as he stepped back from him and stalked over to Mason. He held his hand up at his boys as he went, commanding, “Hold up.”
Mason walked around to the rear passenger door and Nik joined him.
“So, you boys really did come to your senses then. Figured on you double-crossing me.”
“She’s not happy about this whole shitshow. You’re gonna need something to calm her down with,” Mason said, knowing the sick, twisted way Nik operated. He was doing a good job of using it to his advantage right now.
“Sounds like my girl,” he laughed.
It had my fists clenching white-hot. His girl? Talk about fucking deluded.
He snapped his fingers and his boys came forward, all six of them crowding around the door, seemingly what Mason had intended with the fake warning he’d just given to Nik. He wanted them all in one place. Why? What was he playing at?
Rick handed over a syringe to Nik. “Take it easy. She’s just scared,” he said to Nik, his real concern for Tasha obvious.
Nik scoffed and snatched the syringe from him. “Shut it,” he said, not liking being told to tone it down.
As the Strikers moved in closer to the door I watched Mason inch his way back away from them, away from the Sedan.
He slipped his hand inside his pocket and palmed something that I couldn’t quite make out.
But, being a lot closer than I was, Nik did, suddenly bellowing, “Motherfucker! Get back, boys! Get back!”
Everything happened so fast then.
Mason pulled the thing from his pocket, then made a run for it.
Nik and his boys tried to do the same.
But some of them were slower than others and didn’t make it back far enough before flames lit up the sky as one hell of an explosion blew the sedan apart.
Screams tore through the night.
Gunfire erupted.
We all broke position and ran into the fray.
Those Strikers who’d made it far enough away to avoid taking the brunt of the explosion, came at us.
Nik barked out orders to put us all to ground.
Slade tackled him, slamming him down on his back with a jarring thud on the concrete.
They wrestled one another brutally, two hardened men so used to the mechanics of battle that even a shocking turnabout to both of their best laid plans didn’t faze them too much. It was just another obstacle they were both able to shift gears to decimate with any means necessary. At any cost.
Their long-time feud had spilled so much blood, endangered so many, cost the lives of so many. And, right now, it was risking the life of the woman I loved and my unborn child.
Enough was enough.
I bolted over to them ready to put that motherfucker, Nik, to ground.
I was just a few feet out when Nik got the upper hand on Slade with a dirty fucking move, sweeping his leg at his ankles as he made it to his feet.
Slade hit the ground again, smacking his face hard on the concrete, blood spurting from a clearly broken nose. Using it to his utmost advantage, Nik rolled back to his feet and pulled his gun, cocking it and taking aim at Slade.
Before he could even fire, a gunshot rang out. It missed him by a hair, the bullet imbedding in the exterior wall of the abandoned gas station. I jerked my head to see Liam sprinting toward them with his gun in firing position. No wonder he’d missed, given that he was running at top speed.
Nik’s eyes narrowed dangerously at him and he fired off a shot. A pained grunt came from Liam as it plunged into his shoulder, the force and shock of it slamming him back. He lost his balance and crashed to his knees. As his hand went to his shoulder, blood oozed over his fingers. Shit. It was coming too quickly, he was losing too much blood too fast.
“No! Go!” he gritted out as I skidded to a stop beside him. “Take him down. End this,” he willed me.
“Go,” a familiar voice called out, and I turned to see Mason hurrying over. “I’ve got him.”
I hesitated one more moment on leaving the side of my wounded brother, but as Mason reached Liam and started tending to him, I knew he had it in the bag. Two of us weren’t needed.
With a swift kick to Nik’s gut, Slade managed to buy himself enough time to get back to his feet. But before he was able to take another shot at Nik, Rick jumped in between them trying to break it up. The both of them were so stunned that someone was trying to actually put an end to the violence amid a massive battle between the best of the best of two clubs that they hesitated.
It bought me the time I needed to hurtle across the distance.
My peripheral vision picked up two Strikers members running for me, no doubt intending to stop me from reaching their Prez. A roar cut through the night. The next thing I knew, Tank was literally throwing himself at them, tackling them both to the ground at once like the beast of a man that he was.
No need to worry about that then.
I made it just as Nik grabbed Rick by the scruff of his neck and started giving him shit, issuing threats and hell knew what else to his own club brother.
In the next second, I
