The airfield was semi-private. That usually meant illegal shit went down—especially in a landing strip plowed out in the middle of nowhere. Swung gates were left open, and clattered with the collection of thick chain links and heavy locks. Justice stopped before he glided through the unprotected entrance—almost too easy.
His left fist clenched shut and was held above his head to bring the other bikes to an idle. “Spread out. Looking for Rocky Jones, a pilot.”
Shit smells like an ambush to me.
“Bro, I don’t like this. You trusting Red’s word about this guy as the rip-off pilot?” Mercy, his biological blood brother warned.
Justice swiveled his head to cast an eye upon his questioning brother, and smiled with a cocky screw you look that often led to epic fights with his own kin.
Old timers had established the Savage Souls OMC in the sixties. Justice had risen through the ranks immediately after his full-initiation that followed a one-year pledge phase. He claimed the presidency within a few years—although some claimed it was a violent coup that desecrated club honor and tradition.
After he seized office, a sect known as the “blood brothers” arose when Justice recruited his actual family to join him in the Savage Nation. Five of his six brothers pledged the OMC and served in leadership roles at the national headquarters in Mystic, Colorado. Outside the national headquarters, the other Savage Souls chapters were divided in their loyalty and acceptance of Justice’s strong-armed takeover within the fringe society. What was unanimous among every single Souls’ chapter though, was the fear invoked by the blood brothers.
He slapped a massive palm down against the thick leather cut Mercy donned. His front patch read Secretary, but he also served as the family patriarch. “We’re out a quarter million bucks, and a stash of high-grade weapons that would’ve doubled it. If I gotta chase down a dead man’s lies, then that’s what I’ll do.”
“Just looks like a trap, Bro,” Mercy emphasized.
Father of four daughters, Mercy, the retired Air Force Lieutenant, and his wife planned to leave the Savage Nation once finances returned to stable. Private school tuition and his daughter’s cancer treatments had sent his military nest egg into a spiral of high debts and low credit. His caution had often saved Justice—and today he was extra cautious.
“It’s an abandoned field. Except for that active bird over there.” Justice’s index finger waved in a wide, looping circle to send the others into the airfield and begin searching for Rocky Jones.
Justice’s eight hundred pound bike idled toward the dark olive painted Bell JetRanger helicopter. Its dual blades swept in slow, regular arcs, but the whirl wasn’t revved for take off. A brother biker waved an arm with excitement, and Justice clutched a gear to quicken the pace.
“What the fuck happened?” the old biker asked.
The pilot’s head had exploded inside the cockpit. Justice drop kicked his stand and rested the V-twin on its peg. He lifted the door opposite the spackling of blood and brain. The name embroidered on his leather bomber jacket read Rocky Jones. A Colt Model 1911 lay harmless in his lap. Taped to the windshield was an envelope marked with Savage Souls on the outside flap. Justice snatched it.
Pissed that the coward had offed himself before he could, Justice ripped jagged tears in the envelope with a hard-skinned finger. A brass key fell into his palm.
“That shit addressed to us?” Mercy asked.
Unfolding the letter, Justice narrowed his brow to read the cursive script.
I knew you’d come for me too. Didn’t know who Ricky Geneti was dealing with. The twenty grand he paid me is in the locker—key enclosed. His address is listed below. Please accept my apologies, and leave my family out of it.
Sincerely,
Rocky Jones, Captain (retired)
United States Army, 1 st Calvary Division
Vietnam Veteran.
Chapter 6
The yellow Honda Civic sputtered across to enter onto Highway 578. Abigail stretched her five-foot-ten frame across the console to shove the passenger’s side window down. Air conditioning hadn’t been repaired in the clunker since it went on the blink two years ago—she couldn’t afford it Blasts of wind from oncoming traffic whipped against her left shoulder and swirled hair around her face.
Ricky Geneti’s condo in White Tiger Estates wasn’t far from where she’d just stopped for gas and directions. Sweat beaded across her angular, messed-up face, but all she felt was the pressure of time against her spirit. Time was running out to discover who had murdered her son. Whoever Geneti had stolen that money from was associated with the bikers that had attacked them, and she aimed to find out.
All that aside, the most important element for Abigail that day was her appointment with the funeral home director. She still had to bury Jack. Yes, the pressure of time leaned heavy against her soul.
She tried mashing her mangled hair into place before she turned the corner that led into the new community. She didn’t look great but that couldn’t be helped. The settlement of buildings wasn’t gated, and a far cry from the opulence Ricky had tried to make it sound like. She puttered through and quickly spotted his upstairs apartment. She parked across the lot, and hoofed it over to unit number 2021.
The hollow core exterior door only required a few shoves before she was in and free to rummage through his things. Abigail didn’t waste time tossing items around like an inexperienced cat burglar—she went to his computer. Simple-minded, despite his self-proclaimed genius—he’d never changed his passwords since she set them up years ago.
“Okay, asshole lets see what you’ve done.”
His Mac Air Pro had every text message catalogued—good thing he was too stupid to delete the good stuff. Strings of communications between him and some guy named Rocky Jones laid out a plan to steal weapons once some motorcycle club paid him the money.
“Hell, gotta give him credit for having the brains to think of it and the balls to pull it off—almost.”
The laptop’s images clicked and switched screens as rapidly as her fingers commanded them. She stopped at a string of messages from two unknown numbers. A Google of the area code showed someone in Custer County, Colorado and in Sonoma County, California were dick deep in setting up this deal.
The final text message thread turned her gut.
[last chance motherfucker]
[I got my little boy with me. You wouldn’t dare]
[are you returning our money or not]
[no. fuck off]
Abigail copied and pasted as much of the content as possible and sent an e-mail to herself from Ricky’s account. She erased the sent message, and then tried to delete as many others as possible.
“Where’s the money, you prick?” she blurted aloud.
She searched his system for a bank account or safety deposit box—nothing popped up. Traipsing through his two-bedroom efficiency apartment, she looked in the usual places. Her heart leapt into her throat when she spotted an old stuffed teddy bear tossed into a corner of the spare bedroom. That was it—no furniture, toys, nothing. Ricky’s bedroom didn’t fare much better. Cheap rented-looking furniture pieces, nothing under the beds or in the closets. Her mind caught fire with anger over what he’d done to her son for the sake of money he’d probably already lost.
“Tear the place apart, but find the money.”
Who the fuck was that?
Abigail’s heart stopped for a moment—actually, more than a moment. She peered down the hall and saw a leather cut swing over tattered denims. The bikers. She panicked and padded a small circle in the corner of the guest bedroom. They’d find her no matter where she hid. She willed herself to calm down—Jack still had to be buried.