She inserts the keycard. Kicks the door open.
There’s a thunderous crack. Blood sprays from her leg. She screams, but still charges forward, gun up, undeterred. Inside, three sets of surprised eyes whip in our direction. Cooper and his two remaining men. A shotgun rigged to a tripwire dangles from just inside the doorframe.
Before they can move, we unleash on them. I pop a bullet off between the eyes of one slack-jawed piece of shit, Stone buries a bullet in the chest of another, and Agent Megan Perez storms forward — bloody leg and all — and hammers the butt of her gun right in BD Cooper’s face. The old man’s nose explodes in a misty cloud of red and he falls backward, taking the chair he’s sitting in with him.
Standing over him, she plants her good leg on her chest and aims her gun right at his face. The criminal giant brought low beneath the bloody leg of the vengeful FBI agent.
“If my partner was still alive, he’d insist I arrest you. But since he’s not here, I get the satisfaction of seeing you squirm before I blow your fucking head off,” she says. Then she cocks her head to the side and clicks her tongue. “Good enough. Bowen Dale Cooper, rot in hell.”
With the pull of a trigger, she spills his brains out of the back of his skull.
Then she turns to us.
“Small town like this, the local police aren’t going to have shit to do. They’ll probably be here in a couple minutes at most. You should get your asses out of here,” she says. “Oh, and Axel? I’ll be calling you.”
“You going to be good on that leg?” Stone says.
She shrugs. “It’s just buckshot. I’ve had worse. Get going, Stone. I can explain three dead criminals, and the leg wound helps me sell it, but I can’t explain having an out-of-town biker gang as backup.”
“Come on, brothers, let’s go home.”
The ride home passes in a blur and, no matter how fast I go, I can’t escape the sense of dread that creeps over me. How will Stone react when he finds Adella gone? Will I still have a place in the MC when he finds out I told his daughter to leave, to set out on her own and build a life for herself?
Or will I wind up like Silas? Or Bowen Dale Cooper? Dead in a bloody mess, all for the crime of coming between Stone and his family.
The entire ride, I fight with those dark thoughts.
And they come to life when we arrive back at the clubhouse. When Stone steps through the door and sees the tears in his wife’s eyes. When she runs to his side and throws her arms around him, whispering something in his ear. They come to life in the thundercloud of his face, the black storm in his eyes as he turns to me and says, “Snake, where the fuck is my daughter?”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Adella
Alone, I spend a night in a dingy hotel room near the venue. I could probably afford something more than the cheap hotel where I’m staying but, as I start looking at locations, it sinks in how alone I am, how I don’t even have a job, and I find the cheapest acceptable place I can. Still, I end up switching rooms twice before I feel comfortable unpacking. The first room has a roach the size of a house cat chilling on my pillow when I enter. The second room smells like someone’s grandmother died in it while smoking a cigar made of mold.
But the third room? Well, it still sucks — the air conditioner only works at half strength and the person in the room next door watches their television with the volume cranked up to eleven — but it sucks at an acceptable level.
Besides, I feel like I deserve a sucky night. My parents will worry when they realize that I’ve left. I can picture the look of grief on my mom’s face, I can see the steely look my father will get, when he’s doing his best to keep the pain he’s feeling in check.
I’ve hardly unpacked my things when my phone starts blowing up. First with phone calls — all of which I ignore — and then text messages. All from my mom. It’s so unlike her to act like this — even when the Makris family was storming our clubhouse, or when those Cooper’s men were trying to abduct her, she kept her cool — but then, I’m not too surprised. It’s hitting her that, after all the danger she’s been through, now — for real — she’s losing her daughter.
Then my father tries to call. Just once. He leaves me a short message, a few gruff words telling me he loves me, he wants me to call, and that my mother misses me.
He follows it up with a single text: We miss you. We love you.
I answer: I love you, too. I miss you, too. But I am fine. And I need to do this for myself.
My phone buzzes once more. I’m proud of you, is all it says.
There’s a knife of guilt sitting in my stomach. This is something I have to do for myself, my future’s on the line, but that doesn’t ease the pain that comes with leaving my family behind like I’ve done.
My phone goes quiet after for a little while. And my attention drifts over to the minibar, and the only thing that keeps me from cracking open the pint-sized bottle of Bacardi is the ten-dollar price tag.
Determined to think about anything but the family and friends I’ve left behind, I turn on the TV. Through a snowstorm of static, I watch some HBO — The Hurt Locker
