Raiden (Satan’s Angels MC #2)

Chapter 22

Raiden

“B e smart about this.” Gray claps both hands onto my shoulders. He’s a barely effective barrier against me tearing out of my skin and going after Widow as a bloody meat bag ready to haunt the fuck out of her motherfucking piece of shit father.

A bullet to his brain? No way. That is far too good for a man like Zale Grand.

This is the second time in a matter of weeks that Gunner has called us after fucking someone up with a knife. In this case, it was several Berserkers. We got the call in the middle of dinner. I was on edge the whole time, barely keeping it together even thinking about Widow meeting Zale alone. She had Gunner with her, but if she wasn’t with me, I didn’t feel like she was protected.

I hold none of this against Gunner. Dude put five men in the ground and got himself injured trying to get Widow and himself out of this mess.

He’s currently being supported by Bullet and Reaper, keeping weight off the leg that Zale obliterated at close range with three bullets. One is lodged in his thigh and the other two have made a mess of his knee that I can only imagine. Walking with any sort of ease or lack of pain anytime in the future is going to be an unachievable dream for him.

Gray drove my dad, Lark, and Penny back to the clubhouse. I was on my bike, so I could get downtown faster.

Gunner met us blocks away. He left his blood on the ground for the cops, but no evidence of himself. Just a few dead bikers still in their cuts. He told me everything after literally dragging himself out of an alley, scaring me near shitless.

I hate how fast Gray and the rest of the men got here. We’re getting too good at locking down the club, making sure the women and kids are safe, leaving a few men back to guard them and keep an eye on the men we still can’t trust. Especially now. They may or may not have known about this. They might have been informing on Widow all along. We knew that, but having it waved right in front of us makes me glad I didn’t go to the clubhouse before I gunned it straight here.

If I was there and set eyes on one of those bastards, I would have taken their head off and more than just metaphorically.

Gray’s up in my face right now and I don’t even remember saying anything half-cocked. Then again, know a guy since kindergarten and he doesn’t have to say a thing to be heard. Know me a minute and it would be damn obvious that I’m about to lose my shit, get on my bike, and go in guns fucking blazing.

No one takes Widow. No one hurts Widow.

I don’t realize I’ve muttered the mantra slamming through my brain out loud until Gray backs off and nods. “This needs to end.” He nods at the men surrounding us and starts giving orders. I have no doubt that everyone here is well armed and not afraid to ride out with me if that’s the order Gray gives.

Not one of these men would question going after Widow even though technically she’s little more than the enemy by a matter of weeks, but this is about more than just one woman. This is about our whole club. Zale didn’t take Widow because he wanted her. He took her as bait, and he made it so obvious and easy to follow them that it’s clear that he’s enjoying his savage torment.

You can only push a peaceful man so far before they snap.

“Atlas, take Gunner to Archer’s before he bleeds out,” Gray orders.

Gunner breaks away from the men holding him up, ready to protest, but Gray gets in his face, grabs him by the back of the neck, and slams their foreheads within an inch of each other.

“I need you to survive this. You did a fine job tying those wounds off, but even if you don’t bleed out, you need that leg. Zale could have shot you once. He didn’t have to blow out your knee. He knew what would cause the most torment and for that, I’ll always be sorry. Every day I see you in pain is a reminder that I made the wrong choice when I allowed my father to live. This isn’t mercy.”

Gray turns, scanning the rest of us, one big hand splayed out and spanning Gunner’s shoulder blades. “We get a chance to take Zale down tonight, we’re taking it. However many men you have to kill, so be it. We made a peace treaty and held up our end. Taking Widow is just another way to fuck with us. He wants us to listen? He can hear us out first. He can hear us raise our collective voice in carnage tonight. We will not be ended. We are Satan’s Angels, and this is our city. We will still be here next year and the year after that and motherfucking decades from now. No one is going to drive me out of my own home while I’m breathing. That might be Zale’s aim to make my dead body a certainty, but he can try. They can all fucking try. They’re going to get a fight tonight the likes they’ve never seen and certainly aren’t expecting. We will not sit here idly any longer and my limits of mercy are at an end.”

There’s a mighty roar, every man including Gunner sending up a vote of approval to the night sky.

We ride out, Gunner on the back of Atlas’ bike in the opposite direction and the rest of us moving out.

Zale’s hiding in plain sight. All we have to do is look for the grouping of bikes gathered out front of somewhere before the cops get to them. The sirens blasting in the distance are going to be a pain in the ass for the club unless the cops think it was an internal argument gone wrong, but with Gunner’s blood all over the ground and real bodies lying out in a public street, I doubt it. Our club lawyer is going to be busy. Even so, at the moment, the police are tied up downtown, which leaves us the outskirts of Hart free.

Gray rides at the front, Axe as our road captain, at the back.

I feel better knowing that each of my club brothers is at my back, fully armed. Bullet never misses. Scythe and Reaper are nasty business at the best of times. Decay and Grave are literally twin forces of destruction. They’re so quiet until they get the opportunity to knock skulls together, then they really come alive. Crow and Odin are battle-hardened warriors, and Steel and Vigil have worked with Bullet at his range for so long, I doubt they’d ever miss a shot.

We aren’t going to split up. The warehouse district is on the opposite side of town and Gunner gave us a clear direction he watched those fuckers ride off in. He swore they didn’t double back as he listened to the roar of bikes fading out. I might not take anyone else’s word for it, but when it comes to Gunner, he has senses that the rest of us don’t. He could probably pick out the make and model of a bike at the faintest rumble in the distance and know if it was something driven by one of his club brothers or not.

It’s no secret that we’re coming, so we don’t even think about ditching our bikes. We thunder past closed businesses, a string of houses, and then, just as we’re hitting the outskirts of town, we catch sight of a grouping of bikes in a tumble-down motel parking lot.

Fire might be Zale’s thing, but the vindictive beast in my chest wants to torch this place just to feed my rage.

The office lights click off abruptly and there’s a shadow of motion at the door, zipping the blinds shut.

Whoever is in there running this place is probably going to hide under their desk, cover their eyes, and pray they survive this. Burning it to the ground might do the fucker a favor as long as he has insurance. He had no choice in renting out these rooms to the Berserkers, and renting probably means free or lose your fucking head.

At the sound of our bikes, men pour out of the shadows. Doors fling open, but far more black shapes emerge from the corners and back of the building. They’ve been keeping watch, clearly expecting us.

None of them make a move. They circle and group, but don’t rush to attack us as we pull up. Not one gun is drawn that I can see. Technically, this club and these men are still our allies.

Gray dismounts, Bullet, Vigil, and Steel immediately covering him. We’re all wearing bulletproof vests under our shirts, but if someone takes a pot shot to our heads then we’re done.

The group of men assembling in the lot to square down with us is at least twenty strong that I can see. There’s probably double that hiding in the dark. I wonder how many guns we have trained on us from a distance, which is probably why the large, ugly fucker ready to parry with Gray doesn’t feel the need to talk at gunpoint.

“Zale wants a meeting,” Gray grinds out, perfectly calm. His hand flexes at his side, the fingers beside the missing one tapping against his thigh. “We’re here.”

The huge bastard rolls his shoulders back, grinning one ugly smirk at the men behind him. “It’s you and your VP only. The rest of your men wait out here. No weapons either.”

I would do just about anything to make sure Widow’s safe, including agreeing to some stupid shit like that. They can have me if they want me so badly, but Gray? There’s no way we’re sending our prez in to square off with the sick fucking prick who had him tortured. Gunner was acting VP of this club for a long time. He’s likely in surgery with Archer right now. Anything happens to me, and the club would have a better VP than I could ever be. But Gray? I can’t even think around the black spots that losing my best friend and the best man I’ve ever known, create in my vision.

Gray nods. The decision is his to make and any of us saying anything out here would only undermine his authority in front of a hell of a lot of eyes.

He sets to work disarming himself, laying his guns on the ground at his feet. His knife joins the pile. He straightens, hands out. “Just me. The rest of my men stay out here.”

That’s a fucking crazy idea. I barely swallow back my urge to lunge at him and keep him from going forward. The restless shift behind me says that every single one of the men at my back are thinking the same thing.

“I want your word of honor that the peace agreement stands while I’m in there talking business. The word of a biker and a man of honor.” His hand shoots out, waiting for a man who looks like he hasn’t even heard the word honor before, let alone who understands the concept, to take it.

“Creed,” the bastard mutters as his meaty palm slaps against Gray’s and shakes. “And you have my word.”

That’s all we can go on. That, and the fact that whether or not the peace is real, if Zale wanted to kill us all, he could have done it long ago. Standing here and trusting in that feels watery when there’s so much restless rage rushing through me.

None of us like having to stand here while Gray walks off, escorted by Creed, who is probably some higher-ranking officer in the Berserkers. The two of them get halfway across the crumbling lot, heading for a room right in the middle of all the dilapidated strips, when that very door flies open. Every single man out here braces, hands flying to weapons.

I’m tugged back by Bullet, who wrenches me into a tight formation, our men balling up to protect our backs and flanks.

There’s that single split second of shock and action and then everyone freezes.

My blood freezes even though my heart is still slamming at my ribs from the sheer adrenaline of being in the thick of danger. The sight of Widow with a gun pressed to Zale’s temple, her arm slung around his massive chest, steals everyone’s breath. Her wrists are raw and bleeding and she’s dwarfed from her position slightly behind Zale, but that only makes her a harder target to hit. Anyone tries to shoot her, that bullet would be going through him first.

Her voice rings out into the night, clear and scoring through us all like one huge blade raining down vengeance from the sky. “This man betrayed his own club. His greed put his own club brother in prison. His son spared his life when he was sent to put him to ground, and years later, he broke his oath not to return. He brought the full force of his new club here to abduct and torture one man, his own son, after he’d sworn a blood oath .”

Men from the Berserkers turn to mumble to each other. I’m not focused on what they’re saying or on their expressions. My eyes never leave the woman directly across the parking lot from me, or what I can see of her, which isn’t much.

“He used his own daughter as nothing more than a pawn. He forced me into marriage here as part of an alliance only to increase his own gain. When I refused to be his drug lord, he no longer cared what happened to me. Might as well just execute his own children and wipe out his old club—men he’d sworn to bleed for and die for—and move you all in here. Satan’s Angels would have been happy to uphold the peace, even working with a known traitor like Zale Grand, but this? This is the man who’s leading you? This is your prez? A man who would turn on you in a second just to further his own power, greed, and vengeance? He’s not afraid to sacrifice any single one of you. You might be hard, rough men, but I know that you have a sense of honor. Your own families mean the world to you, especially your children. Is this the man you’re going to trust your lives to? Is a man who would sacrifice his own children so callously the man you want safeguarding your own families?”

Another brutal rumble rips through the crowd. Creed stiffens beside Gray, and I can feel the menace pouring off him, but not towards the man at his side. He’s like a furnace blasting the heat of his ire directly at Zale Grand.

“He’s still my father and I don’t want to see him dead. I thought that was the only way that he was ever going to stop, but I was wrong. Right here, I’m going to give you a choice, Zale.” The gun presses harder into his temple, puckering and whitening the skin with the strain. “You confess to the murders tonight. You’ll say you shot your own men after they got in your way, and you shot Gunner when he tried to stop you. You’ll confess to kidnaping, and also to attempted murder. You’ll tell the cops that you brought those dealers to this town and that you ordered them to torch those buildings. They were unpredictable and violent and turned on each other, but you were the one who brought them to our doorstep. You’ll swear a blood oath, here and now, in front of each and every single one of these men, that you will hand over leadership of the Berserkers, do your time in prison, and leave us all the fuck alone if you should survive it. Every one of these men will hold you accountable to it. It’s that, or I pull this trigger.” Her voice wavers at that and my heart caves in.

I would do it. I would save her from this choice if I could. I’d be the one to kill Zale. I’d go back to jail to spare Ella from having to do this. It’s killing me to stand here, knowing I can’t save her from this. I can’t do this for her. It’s not my choice to make.

As brutal as that is, I know if she had to choose between me and her, she’d choose to save me. She might not be able to tell me what she feels and that might be because it’s tangled and complicated, but she was willing to die to save my sister and it’s clear that she’d do the same for me.

“Make your choice, Zale,” she goes on while we’re still anxiously frozen. The Berserkers are shifting from foot to foot, some of them clenching double fists and breathing heavily. “Actions speak so much louder than false oaths and your actions are that of a coward. You’re a weak man, Zale Grand. What’s your choice? Death or prison?”

I don’t know many men who wouldn’t choose even a severely reduced life over death and Zale’s included. His stark green eyes rove over the men assembled before him. Not just his current club, but all of us. They scrape over Gray, and I can’t imagine how painful this is for him. Neither Ella nor Gray wanted their father dead. Gray never meant for Zale to become an enemy. He thought his father would go away quietly, like he promised, and make some sort of life for himself outside the club. He gave him the chance back then, and Zale chose life.

He’s going to choose life again. I can see it in the hateful glare he levels at me. I have done nothing to this man. Nothing but love his son as a brother before we ever patched in, love his club as my chosen family, get disowned by my blood family and get locked in a cage for years. Even now, he still can’t see the truth that we were never any threat to him until he revealed himself as a traitor to his oath and club.

He turns his head and whispers something to Widow that we can’t hear.

She releases him, but keeps the gun trained on his head. We all know what a good shot she is. She won’t miss, and from the aching determination on her face, she won’t hesitate to pull that trigger either.

Creed tackles Zale to the ground before he gets a chance to pull anything. He kneels on him while he grunts, and zip ties his wrists. After he yanks him up, he turns to Gray with clear purpose. He’s a rough looking man, but Gray clearly saw that he’s an honorable one and he appealed to that honor as soon as we got here. Gray’s like that. He sees the good stuff in people sometimes long before they can even see it for themselves.

“I’ll take him to the cops. He can have a crisis of conscience and decide to come clean. He tries anything stupid I’ll put a bullet in him myself.”

Gray steps right into Creed’s path, but not because he has anything to say to the man who sired him and betrayed him. “Our club?” Gray grunts, not trusting the bastards around us for a second. Creed might be okay, and he might even mean what he says, but he’s just one man. We don’t know that the men here won’t turn against him.

“We made an alliance. As far as I’m concerned, it stands.” He thumps his chest over the patch that denotes his rank. Road Captain. “I can’t speak for what Axel wants. He’s our chapter’s VP. He never did want to expand our operations outside New Mexico, and honestly, he likely couldn’t even give a fuck about what’s going on up here with some club he’s never heard of until Zale brought it into our attention. A bunch of us just did what our prez said without question because that’s how it goes. As far as the future goes, Axel will be busy securing himself at home before he looks outward. This was Zale’s project and as far as we’re concerned, it’s at an end.”

“I’ll return your men to you then.”

“They can come with us when we roll out. They have my number. I’ll make plans so they can catch up along the way back.”

Creed looks past Gray to Widow, who hasn’t moved from her spot by the open door. She looks like she has all the strength in the world, but I know what’s underneath that front. She’s probably going to collapse the second she gets a moment in private. I want nothing more than to wrap my arms around her, put her on my bike, and drive her back to safety. Back to our home.

Is it her home?

That’s why Creed’s studying her. “You’re welcome back in New Mexico, Widow. You might not be our MC Princess anymore, but you’ll always have a place somewhere with the club if you want it.”

“Thanks,” she mutters . “But if I ever leave here, I’ll be going back to Nevada.”

Creed nods tightly.

He grasps Zale’s bound arms and shoves him along, motioning to his men. “Let’s go. We’re out of here in ten.”

As they make to move out, our club still watches warily, grouped together against anything else that might get thrown our way tonight. We stay tight until Gray gives the signal and then we head for our bikes.

I stay exactly where I am, waiting for Widow to move.

I don’t want to rush to her and pick her up like she can’t stand on her own two feet. I’m not testing her to see if she’ll come to me, but I do want her to have that choice. I want to show her how much I respect and admire her and how she’ll always have the freedom to choose.

I just hope that she might want to give the good shit we’ve been building a shot.

As soon as Gray gives that signal, her eyes shift from watching her father and Creed to find me. She doesn’t put her gun away, but she does lower it and click the safety on. She takes one step and another, but then she abandons the pretense of calm, deadly, and unfeeling, and runs across the parking lot.

She doesn’t throw her arms around me and I don’t extend mine. There’s no grand gesture or air spinning. No sweeping her off her feet and twirling her around. We’re still in the thick of danger and that shit would be nonsensical. There’s time for romance later, on our own terms.

As soon as she stops though, she’s blinking away tears. The dark can’t hide how bright her green eyes shine.

“Raiden,” she breathes. “I had to get to him first. Before he did anything to you or Gray. I wouldn’t do what he wanted, and his next move was going to be to obliterate everything and everyone here. I care about you all way too much to have let him do that. I didn’t mean to put myself in danger. It’s not that I have a death wish. I just had to get to him before he got to you. He said that he set up our happiness and that he could take it away in an instant, just like he took your life away from you before. I couldn’t- I was never…” She trails off, the tears spilling over and tracking down her cheeks. She shakes her head, causing the ones pooling in her eyes to shimmer down her cheeks. “I told him I don’t love you, but that I’d honor my commitment here. But I- I- don’t know that I do love you yet, but I know that I want to stay and see if I can. I never saw myself wanting marriage or even kids, but then you were quite literally thrown in my path as a set of demands and obligations. I’m not much for blind obedience or going quietly, but if I’m glad for one thing that Zale did, it’s that he used me as a tool so that we could meet. I know that’s not romantic, it’s not some big declaration, but it’s my truth and to me, honestly is the most sacred thing a person can offer. I’m sorry if that’s not enough.’

“Are you fucking crazy, El? You just risked your life to save ours and our club. The outcome tonight could have ended with us all bleeding out, but instead, we’re going home. Hart is ours again and we can live here, free and peaceful like before. I can’t think of a declaration of love more honest and fearless than that.”

“It wasn’t fearless. I’m not. Fearless.”

She swipes at her tears in frustration and that’s when I slip my arm around her waist and guide her to my bike.

I don’t have an extra helmet, but I give her mine. I set it gently on her head, doing the strap up under her chin. The face is open, but I duck down anyway so she can hear exactly what I’m saying. ‘Your bikes are probably going to be forfeited to the cops for a while, but we’ll get them back, I promise. If not, I’ll work side by side with you, building and customizing another.” She’s still frowning, her eyes still huge and liquid, but I’m so far from finished. “You think that what you told me wasn’t moving? All I have ever wanted is your truth. Anyone can say they love someone and have it ring hollow. Even a blood oath can be just another string of meaningless words. There’s plenty of time to say I love you. Until you’re ready, I know you mean it and I’m excited to walk beside you as your partner, building up a life in this town for us and for the family I’ve chosen as my own. I’m happy as fuck to share them with you. You’re a warrior through and through and I know you can protect yourself, but I’d be honored to be at your side, helping you whenever you might need it, celebrating joy and clinging to each other through the shitty parts of life. You’re brilliant, you’re dangerous, you’re brave from the bottom of your soul.”

Her hands shoot out and grasp my face, holding me like she can’t quite believe in here and that this is more than a dream that’s going to vaporize if she lets it go.

“Can you take me home, Sparkles?”

I grin, noting the vibrant pink and gold nail polish that is still hanging in there. “Yeah, Ella. Not going to call you Widow ever again unless you ask me to.” I mount up in front of her, balancing the bike carefully as she wraps her arms around my waist. When I turn back to her, I can’t help the grin that lights up my face. “Let’s roll out.”