There was no sign of anyone back here, so whoever had been shooting at us sure weren’t professionals, or anyone with military experience. They fired on us, set the place ablaze, but didn’t bother to cover the back exit?
So they were novices or sloppy.
“Shit, man,” Crunch said, coughing. “We need to get out of here before the cops and the fire department show up.”
I nodded. We followed close to the side of the building, Crunch behind me, weapons drawn. I could feel the heat from the interior as the place burned, and silently prayed the whole place wouldn’t blow until after we got out of there. When I reached the front, I stood motionless, watching three guys ride off on bikes.
Three guys wearing Inferno Motorcycle Club patches.
“I fucking told you,” Crunch said.
I didn’t say anything until we were in the parking lot, away from the building. Then I screamed incoherently, the anger I felt toward the club coloring everything. “Fucking motherfucker shit!”
“We need to get out of here now,” Crunch said.
A few miles away, we stopped to call Crunch’s wife. I’d never seen Crunch so terrified as he was when he made the call to tell his wife to get out of town. I stood there while he gave her instructions, my mind turning over what had happened.
“Shit’s gone down,” he said. “Get the paperwork and your weapon from the safe, just like we planned. The bags are in the car, right? Good girl.” He paused. “Don’t take anything else. Leave the note on the kitchen counter. I’m staying with you until you’re on the road. Get out of town and call me. We’ll give you a place to meet us.” He hung out on the phone with her for a few minutes, then turned to me, exhaling loudly.
“She a nd MacKenzie are on their way.”
“They’re going to know something’s up when she and Mac are gone, Crunch,” I said. I was trying to work out what we were going to do next, but I was flying by the seat of my pants here.
Crunch shook his head. “She'll leave a note for me, saying she finally left me, that she went back to her mother's in Puerto Rico. Her mother will cover for her, and there’s no way the club is going there to verify it.”
“You thought this through,” I said. At least he had some semblance of a plan.
“I confronted Mad Dog about the discrepancies in the accounts a couple months ago. It was stupid, obviously. I know that now. But I was doing the books, and it was just a discrepancy- that's all it was. No big deal. I thought Benicio was ripping us off, at first. Mad Dog brushed it off, said he'd take care of it with Benicio. But then the vote with the cartel thing came up. My curiosity got the better of me."
"And you started poking around online," I said.
" Yeah," Crunch said. "The past couple weeks. I was getting together enough evidence. Figured to accuse the club President of something like that, it would have to be ironclad. I wanted to make sure it was."
"He accused you," I said. "Brought it to the officers for vote. Sent me here to make sure me and Tank took you out."
"I thought I was pretty safe after I let it go and backed off," Crunch said. "I made a plan with April, but still. I didn't really expect this, not now."
"All three of us were supposed to be finished off," I realized.
"We all dissented on the cartel thing," Crunch said.
Shit. I knew it was a big deal when I didn't vote with him on the cartel alliance, but pissed off enough to fucking kill me? Kill all three of us? It was crazy, even for Mad Dog. "Blaze didn't vote for it either."
"Yeah, but he's off traveling with the Old Lady," Crunch said.
Blaze was the Vice President of the MC, and had no qualms about disagreeing with Mad Dog, on the cartel deal or on anything else.
"Do we even know where they are?” I asked.
Blaze and I weren't exactly on speaking terms when he left. In fact, the last time I saw him had
Robert Jordan, Brandon Sanderson
Susan Sontag, Victor Serge, Willard R. Trask